Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

In the present study, we tested the effects of anodal tDCS deliveredover the Fp3 (for 10mins at 1.5mA) on the face inversion effect(better recognition for upright vs inverted faces) while participantsperformed an old/new recognition task. We recruited three groupsof participants (n=72) and randomly assigned them toexperimental conditions. In the anodal Study Phase conditionparticipants received the tDCS stimulation during the learningphase only. In the anodal Recognition Phase condition,participants received the anodal stimulation during the recognitiontask only. In the control group participants received shamstimulation (during the study or recognition phase). Consistentwith previous research, the results showed that anodal stimulationreduced the inversion effect by impairing recognition of uprightfaces. Critically, in both anodal conditions the inversion effect wassignificantly reduced compared to sham, and no difference wasfound between the two anodal conditions. Upright faces in eachanodal condition were recognized significantly worse than sham.This suggests that the tDCS-induced effects on face recognitionare immediate and affect both learning and performance. Weinterpret the results based on the account of perceptual learningand previous work on tDCS and the inversion effect.