Expertise for cars and birds recruits brain areas involved in.pdfVIP

© 2000 Nature America Inc. • articles Expertise for cars and birds recruits brain areas involved in face recognition 1,2 2 2 2 Isabel Gauthier , Pawel Skudlarski , John C. Gore and Adam W. Anderson 1 Present Address: Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Wilson Hall, Nashville, Tennessee 37240, USA 2 Department of Diagnostic Radiology, Yale University Medical School, Fitkin Basement, 333 Cedar Street, New Haven, Connecticut 06510, USA Correspondence should be addressed to I.G. (isabel.gauthier@) m Expertise with unfamiliar objects (‘greebles’) recruits face-selective areas in the fusiform gyrus (FFA) o and occipital lobe (OFA). Here we extend this finding to other homogeneous categories. Bird and c . e car experts were tested with functional magnetic resonance imaging during tasks with faces, r u t familiar objects, cars and birds. Homogeneous categories activated the FFA more than familiar a n . objects. Moreover, the right FFA and OFA showed significant expertise effects. An independent i c s behavioral test of expertise predicted relative activation in the right FFA for birds versus cars within o r each group. The results suggest that level of categorization and expertise, rather than superficial u e properties of objects, determine the specialization of the FFA. n / / : p t t h • . c n Face and object recognition differ in at least two ways. First, faces ac