Cognitive neuroscientist Isabel Gauthier enjoys the process of discovery
Long pegged as one of the premier experts in the science of face recognition, research has much broader implications 鈥� including how our brains work, how we learn, and finding ways to make life better for people with autism.
鈥淣o part of the brain works in isolation. It really is a complex process and fairly flexible,鈥� said Gauthier, professor of psychology in the program at 菠萝视频. 鈥淸rquote]People change, so clearly their brain is going to change. What I鈥檓 really interested in is how the dynamics of the changes in the brain allow for the dynamics of the changes in behavior.[/rquote]鈥�
Gauthier and her team, based in Wilson Hall, spend many hours at the in Medical Center North. Using fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging), they map brain activity. Test subjects volunteer to go into the scanner (much like a regular MRI) and must lie very still while being shown various stimuli, including objects, photographs or even musical notation. When their brain recognizes something they have seen previously, 鈥渉ot spots鈥� show up, identifying what part of the brain is being used.
Among the more striking experiments are those involving face recognition.
鈥淭here has been a lot written about face recognition and how it is different from everything else we recognize with our visual system,鈥� Gauthier said. 鈥淏ut our work has been motivated by testing the possibility that maybe faces are only special because it鈥檚 a case of expertise.
鈥淲hat I mean is that we begin learning about faces very early in our lives, and we practice face recognition so much that our brains get really good at solving that particular 鈥榩roblem.鈥� By gaining expertise, it changes our brain in the process.鈥�
Understanding expertise
In recent studies, Gauthier has moved from identifying recognition hot spots to deciphering if the participant鈥檚 brain recognizes a face or object as a whole or only notices certain visual cues.
鈥淲e say that people perceive a face 鈥榟olistically鈥� when they are able to recognize a face based on more than one attribute at a time, rather than, say, just the eyes,鈥� she said. 鈥淲e were able to show that people vary considerably in the extent to which they process faces holistically, and that those people who treat faces this way are the best face recognizers.鈥�
Gauthier has determined that visual information about objects 鈥� whether it鈥檚 identifying models of cars or novel objects (called 鈥済reebles鈥� in psychology circles) 鈥� can be processed holistically too.
鈥淲hen we teach people to become experts with these novel objects, the more holistically they perceive them, the more the 鈥榝ace-selective鈥� parts of their brain become active,鈥� Gauthier explained.
鈥淧erhaps most surprising, a car expert who is perceiving cars holistically cannot at the same time use this strategy with faces. This has taught us that even though perceptual skills can change with experience, they are nonetheless a limited resource in the brain.鈥�
This phenomenon may be significant in the study of how children learn, particularly because they often simultaneously develop many types of perceptual expertise while in school.
鈥淚t may be important to understand under what circumstances these skills compete with one another,鈥� she said.
Solving problems
Gautier, a self-described 鈥減rocess person鈥� enjoys the daily problem solving that comes with her job.
鈥淚 like science 鈥� all the little decisions,鈥� she said. 鈥淵ou have to come up with a good question and find the next piece of the puzzle. I never find it boring.
鈥淲e鈥檙e not curing cancer, but each day we are figuring out a little more how the brain works, and there are many applications for that.鈥�
One of those applications is in the field of autism.
鈥淲e studied a boy who had autism and who was an expert on these animated Digimon characters. For human faces, he had no recognition, but for the characters he did. This has motivated some of my colleagues to ask, 鈥楥an we motivate people with autism through video games to learn faces? If we overcome one challenge, such as the lack of interest in making eye contact, will that help resolve other social issues that people with autism face?鈥欌��
Over the past decade, Gauthier has found it satisfying to share her love of science with the graduate students in her care.
鈥淚鈥檝e really become motivated more and more to train grad students,鈥� she said. 鈥淚 think sometimes I forget we鈥檙e doing science and I just want to hear from the students 鈥� what they鈥檙e excited about, what progress they鈥檝e made, to see them grow. Because I鈥檓 a process person, each of these sorts of challenges presents something interesting to me.鈥�
Gauthier came to 菠萝视频 with her husband , also a cognitive neuroscience researcher at 菠萝视频 and fellow French Canadian from Quebec, after earning graduate degrees at Yale in 1998.