Neurons programmed to fire at specific faces may have more effect on conscious recognition of faces than the images themselves. Subjects presented with a blended face, such as an amalgamation of Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, had significantly more firing of such face-specific neurons when they recognized the blended or morphed face as 1 person or the other.

Some neurons in the region of the brain known as the medial temporal lobe are observed to be extremely selective in the stimuli they respond to. A cell may only fire in response to different pictures of a particular person who is very familiar to the subject (such as loved one or a celebrity, as in the famous “Jennifer Aniston neuron“), the person’s written or spoken name, or recalling the person from memory.

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