Caloric Vestibular Stimulation Modulates High Level Face Processing.

Understanding of the link between the vestibular organs and the visual system is becoming established (e.g. Della-Justina et al., 2015), yet few studies have explored the use of vestibular stimulation to modulate visual processing. Preliminary evidence that this can be achieved is seen in one clinical case study which reported improved face perception in an acquired prosopagnosic following vestibular stimulation (Wilkinson, Ko, Kilduff, McGlinchey, & Milberg, 2005), and in one study that demonstrated an enlarged N170 in healthy adults during vestibular stimulation (Wilkinson, Ferguson, & Worley, 2012). The present study tested the behavioural effects of caloric vestibular stimulation on a higher cognitive level of face recognition in sixty adults. Participants were required to identify the nationality of celebrities in four testing sessions following a counterbalanced ABAB design. Relative to no stimulation, caloric vestibular stimulation significantly increased accuracy scores which could not be accounted for by practise effects. This study constitutes the first attempt to improve healthy face recognition skills through vestibular stimulation and the findings have immediate real-world value in settings that require superior face recognition performance such as passport control and identity parades. The study also provides further evidence to the efficacy of vestibular stimulation in modulating cognitive processes.