{"id":8512,"date":"2019-05-22T16:08:30","date_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:08:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/n170\/"},"modified":"2019-05-22T16:08:30","modified_gmt":"2019-05-22T16:08:30","slug":"n170","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/n170\/","title":{"rendered":"N170"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>A specific component of the event-related potential (ERP), elicited by upright faces, and observed in adults but not infants, and thus considered to be a neural&nbsp;marker of specialized mechanisms for face processing. &nbsp;In most individuals it is lateralized in the right hemisphere. &nbsp;Meanwhile the component is maximal over occipito-temporal&nbsp;electrode sites, which indicates its source is located in the fusiform and infero-temporal gyri. &nbsp;Compared with responses to visual stimuli &nbsp;other than those of faces, it displays increased negativity some 120-130 ms after stimulus presentation. &nbsp;The first description of N170 was provided by <a href=\"http:\/\/cel.huji.ac.il\/\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/cel.huji.ac.il\/&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Shlomo Bentin<\/a> (1945-2012) in 1996 following recording differences in ERP responses to different parts of the face (e.g., eyes) and non-animate objects (e.g., cars). &nbsp;He and his colleagues showed the latency of N170 increased with the presentation of inverted faces (e.g., see the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faculty.ucr.edu\/~rosenblu\/VSinvertedspeech.html\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.faculty.ucr.edu\/~rosenblu\/VSinvertedspeech.html&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Thatcher effect<\/a>). &nbsp;There are numerous descriptions available of the <a href=\"http:\/\/brain.mcmaster.ca\/p\/visres06.46.4604-4614.pdf\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/brain.mcmaster.ca\/p\/visres06.46.4604-4614.pdf&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">technicalities<\/a> involved in extracting N170 waves. The technique has been used in a number clinically-based studies, &nbsp;For example, in the case of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faceblind.org\/social_perception\/papers\/DP%20chapter.pdf\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.faceblind.org\/social_perception\/papers\/DP%20chapter.pdf&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">developmental prosopagnosia<\/a>, there was evidence for normal N170 sensitivity to upright faces, but that the component amplitudes were not enhanced relative to controls. &nbsp;The conclusion drawn is that individuals with&nbsp;developmental propospagnosia do not distinguish between upright and inverted faces, and their face processing system is not selectively attuned to the standard upright orientation. &nbsp;In <a href=\"http:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/Journal\/10.3389\/neuro.09.067.2009\/full\" class=\"cc-route-enabled\" target=\"_self\" data-editable-link=\"http:\/\/www.frontiersin.org\/Journal\/10.3389\/neuro.09.067.2009\/full&amp;target=_self\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">typical development<\/a>, N170 does not show the same amplitude enhancement in 3- and 6-month-old infants as adults. &nbsp;The P400 waveform, considered as a potential precursor to the adult N170, revealed only a latency effect to faces, which suggests it does not have this function. &nbsp;P400 was, however, influenced by inversion, with a more negative amplitude being evident for inverted rather than upright faces, but it occurred to both human and monkey faces (revealing a lack of specificity in the processing of faces early in development). &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>See <a href=\"event-related_-brain-_potentials_-erps-\">Event-related (brain) potentials (ERPs)<\/a>, <a href=\"face_processing\">Face processing<\/a>, Facial recognition, <a href=\"fusiform_gyrus\">Fusiform gyrus<\/a>, <a href=\"gyrus\">Gyrus<\/a>, <a href=\"mutual_gaze\">Mutual gaze<\/a>, <a href=\"p400\">P400<\/a>, <a href=\"prosopagnosia\">Prosopagnosia<\/a><\/p>\n<p><\/body><\/html><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A specific component of the event-related potential (ERP), elicited by upright faces, and observed in adults but not infants, and thus considered to be a neural&nbsp;marker of specialized mechanisms for face processing. &nbsp;In most individuals it is lateralized in the right hemisphere. &nbsp;Meanwhile the component is maximal over occipito-temporal&nbsp;electrode sites, which indicates its source is &hellip; <\/p>\n<p class=\"link-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/n170\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;N170&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[2],"class_list":["post-8512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-glossary","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8512\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lancaster.ac.uk\/fas\/psych\/glossary\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}