When presented with visual stimuli of face images, the ventral stream visual cortex of the human brain exhibits face-specific activity that is modulated by the physical properties of the input images. However, it is still unclear whether this activity relates to conscious face perception. We explored this issue by using the human intracranial electroencephalography technique. Our results showed that face-specific activity in the ventral stream visual cortex was significantly higher when the subjects subjectively saw faces than when they did not, even when face stimuli were presented in both conditions. In addition, the face-specific neural activity exhibited a more reliable neural response and increased posterior-anterior direction information transfer in the “seen” condition than the “unseen” condition. Furthermore, the face-specific neural activity was significantly correlated with performance. These findings support the view that face-specific activity in the ventral stream visual cortex is linked to conscious face perception.

当受到面部图像的视觉刺激时，人脑的腹侧流视觉皮层表现出面部特定的活动，该活动受到输入图像的物理特性的调节。然而，目前尚不清楚这种活动是否与有意识的面部感知有关。我们通过使用人体颅内脑电图技术来探讨这个问题。我们的结果表明，当受试者主观地看到面孔时，腹侧流视觉皮层的面部特异性活动明显高于没有看到面孔时，即使在两种情况下都存在面部刺激。此外，与“看不见”的情况相比，在“看到”的情况下，面部特异性神经活动表现出更可靠的神经反应，并增加了前后方向的信息传递。此外，面部特异性神经活动与表现显着相关。这些发现支持这样的观点：腹侧流视觉皮层中的面部特异性活动与有意识的面部感知有关。