Thirty scalp sites were used to investigate the
specific topography of the event-related potentials (ERPs)
related to face associative priming when masked eyes of
familiar faces were completed with either the proper features
or incongruent ones. The enhanced negativity of N210 and
N350, due to structural incongruity of faces, have a “category
specific” inferotemporal localization on the scalp.
Additional analyses support the existence of multiple ERP
features within the temporal interval typically associated
with N400 (N350 and N380), involving occipitotemporal and
centroparietal areas. Seven reliable dipole locations have
been evidenced using the brain electrical source analysis
algorithm. Some of these localizations (fusiform, parahippocampal)
are already known to be involved in face recognition, the
other ones being related to general cognitive processes
related to the task's demand. Because of their specific
topography, the observed effects suggest that the face
structural congruency process might involve early specialized
neocortical areas in parallel with cortical memory circuits
in the integration of perceptual and cognitive face processing.