Brain Mechanisms in Face-Name Memory: Evidence From Event-Related Potentials and Spatial Localization of Brain Activity

Face-name memory is a special kind of memory that includes visual and semantic memory. Existing research suggests that name retrieval is located at the final stage of face recognition, but the exact timing has not been fully investigated. This study used ERPs and a method of spatially localizing brain activity to investigate neural mechanisms underlying face-name memory. Participants were given four tasks: perceiving unfamiliar faces, learning face-name pairs, recalling a name by a face, and recognizing familiar faces but without names. We found that recently learned face-name pairs had the same highly activated brain regions as long-term familiar faces, but the long-term familiar faces exhibit larger amplitudes on the P100 component in the ventral occipital cortex and the N400 component in the thalamus and Gpi. Faces that can be recognized by name elicit a stronger response in the N400 component, particularly in the left hemisphere-dominant thalamus, Gpi, hippocampus, and putamen, compared to faces that are only familiar but not known by name. Results suggest that N400 may represent the retrieval of semantic information related to the name and the depth of retrieval of face-name pairs.