Familiarity Processing through Faces and Names: Insights from Multivoxel Pattern Analysis Castro-Laguardia, Ana María Ontivero Ortega, Marlis Morato Gabao, Cristina Lucas, Ignacio Vila Castellar, Jaime Bobes León, María Antonieta Guerra Muñoz, Pedro María Faces Familiarity processing Multivoxel pattern analysis The way our brain processes personal familiarity is still debatable. We used searchlight multivoxel pattern analysis (MVPA) to identify areas where local fMRI patterns could contribute to familiarity detection for both faces and name categories. Significantly, we identified cortical areas in frontal, temporal, cingulate, and insular areas, where it is possible to accurately cross-classify familiar stimuli from one category using a classifier trained with the stimulus from the other (i.e., abstract familiarity) based on local fMRI patterns. We also discovered several areas in the fusiform gyrus, frontal, and temporal regions—primarily lateralized to the right hemisphere—supporting the classification of familiar faces but failing to do so for names. Also, responses to familiar names (compared to unfamiliar names) consistently showed less activation strength than responses to familiar faces (compared to unfamiliar faces). The results evinced a set of abstract familiarity areas (independent of the stimulus type) and regions specifically related only to face familiarity, contributing to recognizing familiar individuals. 2024-04-18T07:11:47Z 2024-04-18T07:11:47Z 2023-12-30 info:eu-repo/semantics/article Castro-Laguardia, A.M.; Ontivero-Ortega, M.; Morato, C.; Lucas, I.; Vila, J.; Bobes León, M.A.; Muñoz, P.G. Familiarity Processing through Faces and Names: Insights from Multivoxel Pattern Analysis. Brain Sci. 2024, 14, 39. https://doi.org/10.3390/brainsci14010039 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/90850 10.3390/brainsci14010039 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess Atribución 4.0 Internacional MDPI