The DOI matches its Crossref record; 11 of the 11 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Early Face Processing Specificity: It's in the Eyes!
Abstract
Unlike most other objects that are processed analytically, faces are processed configurally. This configural processing is reflected early in visual processing following face inversion and contrast reversal, as an increase in the N170 amplitude, a scalp-recorded event-related potential. Here, we show that these face-specific effects are mediated by the eye region. That is, they occurred only when the eyes were present, but not when eyes were removed from the face. The N170 recorded to inverted and negative faces likely reflects the processing of the eyes. We propose a neural model of face processing in which face- and eye-selective neurons situated in the superior temporal sulcus region of the human brain respond differently to the face configuration and to the eyes depending on the face context. This dynamic response modulation accounts for the N170 variations reported in the literature. The eyes may be central to what makes faces so special.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Mindblindness: An Essay on Autism and Theory of Mind
(1995) · Choice Reviews Online · doi:10.5860/choice.33-2412 · Cited by 3,670
Yarbus, A. L. (1967) · doi:10.1007/978-1-4899-5379-7 · Cited by 3,304
Yin, R. K. (1969) · Journal of Experimental Psychology · doi:10.1037/h0027474 · Cited by 2,624
Social perception from visual cues: Role of the STS region
Allison, T., Puce, A., & McCarthy, G. (2000) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/s1364-6613(00)01501-1 · Cited by 2,461
The eyes have it: the neuroethology, function and evolution of social gaze
Emery, N. J. (2000) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/s0149-7634(00)00025-7 · Cited by 2,037
Baron‐Cohen, S., Jolliffe, T., Mortimore, C., & Robertson, M. (1997) · Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry · doi:10.1111/j.1469-7610.1997.tb01599.x · Cited by 1,970
Eye contact detection in humans from birth
Farroni, T., Csibra, G., Simion, F., & Johnson, M. H. (2002) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.152159999 · Cited by 1,442
Allison, T. (1999) · Cerebral Cortex · doi:10.1093/cercor/9.5.415 · Cited by 882
Klingberg, T., Forssberg, H., & Westerberg, H. (2002) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/089892902317205276 · Cited by 695
Specialization of Neural Mechanisms Underlying Face Recognition in Human Infants
Haan, M. D., Pascalis, O., & Johnson, M. H. (2002) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/089892902317236849 · Cited by 553
Cited by
Specialization of Neural Mechanisms Underlying Face Recognition in Human Infants
Haan, M. D., Pascalis, O., & Johnson, M. H. (2002) · Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience · doi:10.1162/089892902317236849 · Cited by 553
N170 sensitivity to facial expression: A meta-analysis
Hinojosa, J. A., Mercado, F., & Carretié, L. (2015) · Neuroscience & Biobehavioral Reviews · doi:10.1016/j.neubiorev.2015.06.002 · Cited by 493
Visual attentional orienting by eye gaze: A meta-analytic review of the gaze-cueing effect.
McKay, K. T., Grainger, S. A., Coundouris, S. P., Skorich, D. P., Phillips, L. H., & Henry, J. D. (2021) · Psychological Bulletin · doi:10.1037/bul0000353 · Cited by 435
Understanding face perception by means of human electrophysiology
Rossion, B. (2014) · Trends in Cognitive Sciences · doi:10.1016/j.tics.2014.02.013 · Cited by 314
Attachment style dimensions are associated with brain activity in response to gaze interaction
Cecchini, M., Iannoni, M. E., Pandolfo, A. L., Aceto, P., & Lai, C. (2015) · Social Neuroscience · doi:10.1080/17470919.2014.998344 · Cited by 22
Metadata
- Authors
- Itier, R. J., Alain, C., Sedore, K., & McIntosh, A. R.
- Venue
- Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience
- Publisher
- MIT Press - Journals
- Published
- 2007-11-01
- Volume
- 19
- Issue
- 11
- Pages
- 1815-1826
- ISSN
- 0898-929X (ISSN-L)
- 1530-8898
- OpenAlex
- W2112314727
- Cited by
- 273
- References
- 11
- FWCI
- 4.64
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Early Face Processing Specificity: It's in the Eyes! https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.11.1815
- The paper
- Itier, R. J., Alain, C., Sedore, K., & McIntosh, A. R. (2007). Early Face Processing Specificity: It's in the Eyes! Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience. https://doi.org/10.1162/jocn.2007.19.11.1815
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.