Person recognition and the brain: Merging evidence from patients and healthy individuals

Research output: Contribution to journalReview articleContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Helen Blank - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Medical Research Council (MRC) (Author)
  • Nuri Wieland - , Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf (Author)
  • Katharina von Kriegstein - , Chair of Cognitive and Clinical Neuroscience, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences, Humboldt University of Berlin (Author)

Abstract

Recognizing other persons is a key skill in social interaction, whether it is with our family at home or with our colleagues at work. Due to brain lesions such as stroke, or neurodegenerative disease, or due to psychiatric conditions, abilities in recognizing even personally familiar persons can be impaired. The underlying causes in the human brain have not yet been well understood. Here, we provide a comprehensive overview of studies reporting locations of brain damage in patients impaired in person-identity recognition, and relate the results to a quantitative meta-analysis based on functional imaging studies investigating person-identity recognition in healthy individuals. We identify modality-specific brain areas involved in recognition from different person characteristics, and potential multimodal hubs for person processing in the anterior temporal, frontal, and parietal lobes and posterior cingulate. Our combined review is built on cognitive and neuroscientific models of face- and voice-identity recognition and revises them within the multimodal context of person-identity recognition. These results provide a novel framework for future research in person-identity recognition both in the clinical as well as basic neurosciences.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)717-734
Number of pages18
JournalNeuroscience and biobehavioral reviews
Volume47
Publication statusPublished - 1 Nov 2014
Peer-reviewedYes

External IDs

PubMed 25451765
ORCID /0000-0001-7989-5860/work/142244411

Keywords

Sustainable Development Goals

Keywords

  • Anterior temporal lobe, Familiarity, Meta-analysis, Neuroimaging, Patients, Person recognition