The rich and immediate perception of a familiar face, including its identity, expression and even intent, is one of the most impressive shared faculties of human and non-human primate brains. Many visually responsive neurons in the inferotemporal cortex of macaque monkeys respond selectively to faces^{1, 2, 3, 4}, sometimes to only one or a few individuals^{5, 6, 7}, while showing little sensitivity to scale and other details of the retinal image^{8, 9}. Here we show that face-responsive neurons in the macaque monkey anterior inferotemporal cortex are tuned to a fundamental dimension of face perception. Using a norm-based caricaturization framework previously developed for human psychophysics^{10, 11, 12}, we varied the identity information present in photo-realistic human faces¹³, and found that neurons of the anterior inferotemporal cortex were most often tuned around the average, identity-ambiguous face. These observations are consistent with face-selective responses in this area being shaped by a figural comparison, reflecting structural differences between an incoming face and an internal reference or norm. As such, these findings link the tuning of neurons in the inferotemporal cortex to psychological models of face identity perception.

1. Max Planck Institut für biologische Kybernetik, Spemannstrasse 38, 72076 Tübingen, Germany
2. Laboratory for Action Representation and Learning, Department of Cognitive Neurology, Hertie Institute for Clinical Brain Research, University Clinic Tübingen, Schaffhausenstr. 113, D-72072 Tübingen, Germany
3. †Present addresses: Unit on Cognitive Neurophysiology and Imaging, Laboratory of Neuropsychology, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, 49 Convent Drive, Bldg. 49, MSC 4400, Bethesda, Maryland 20892, USA (D.A.L.); Institute of Higher Nervous Activity and Neurophysiology, Russian Academy of Sciences, Butlerova Street 5a, 117485 Moscow, Russia (I.V.B.)

Correspondence to: David A. Leopold^1,3 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to D.A.L. (Email: leopoldd@mail.nih.gov).

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