Seeing faces activates three separate areas outside the occipital visual cortex in man.

We have examined magnetic cortical responses of 15 healthy humans to 46 different pictures of faces. At least three areas outside the occipital visual cortex appeared to be involved in processing this input, 105-560 ms after the stimulus onset. The first active area was near the occipitotemporal junction, the second in the inferior parietal lobe, and the third in the middle temporal lobe. The source in the inferior parietal lobe was also activated by other simple and complex visual stimuli.