EEG Differences in the Perception of Own and Others’ Faces: Application of a Comprehensive Approach to the Analysis of EEG Data

This report presents a study of differences in the perception of own and others’ faces using an integrated approach to the analysis of EEG data. A paradigm was developed in which healthy volunteers were offered a series of pre-processed and unified photographs of their own and other’s faces. Data analysis used event-related potentials, EEG spectral power analysis, and non-linear EEG indicators such as fractal dimension, envelope frequency, and Hjorth complexity. Perception of one’s own face, as compared with perception of another person’s face, was found to be associated with greater slow-wave activity power and lower α and β rhythm power, a smaller-amplitude P100 component, a greater-amplitude late positive component, and greater values for all nonlinear EEG parameters studied. The results obtained here, along with the EEG data analysis techniques used, will be used in the future to study self-identification pathology in patients with brain lesions.