Beta oscillations in face recognition

This report presents an analysis of the brain's beta oscillations in face recognition. We performed experiments on 26 subjects with a strategy consisting of two types of stimulations: (1) the picture of an elder anonymous lady (unknown face) and (2) the picture of the subject's own grandmother (known face). The subjects were healthy, young people between the ages of 15-32 years. Data were analyzed by means of amplitude frequency characteristics and digital filtering. Our results show the significant role of beta response in face recognition and the differentiation of known and unknown faces. Furthermore, this report supports our former view that the presentation of grandmother face evokes selectively distributed multiple oscillations in the brain. Together with the scope of other frequencies (e.g., delta, theta, and alpha), this method can serve as a tool for research studies or clinical studies in memory and cognition. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.