INTEGRATIVE EEG AND FMRI EVIDENCE REVEALS A MULTI-SCALE NEURAL NETWORK FOR OWNERSHIP PROCESSING USING THE SELF-FACE AND PERSONAL OBJECT RECOGNITION

The sense of ownership biases visual perception, yet while own-face processing has been extensively studied, the neural mechanisms underlying ownership of external objects remain poorly understood. The present study investigated whether ownership processing relies on domain-general mechanisms, stimulus-specific pathways, or their interaction. Using a within-subject multimodal approach, 30 participants categorized faces and objects as either “mine” or “others” during electroencephalography (EEG) and functional MRI (fMRI) sessions.
EEG revealed an early, dynamic interaction between visual and midfrontal processes. Self-face processing modulated early visual components (P1, N170), whereas ownership effects independent of stimulus type emerged at midfrontal sites around 150 ms (N150). Finally, the sustained midfrontal negativity (300–550 ms) was stronger for others than for self-related stimuli. Source-level connectivity analyses showed frequency-specific midfrontal-visual coupling: early high-theta synchrony supported face processing, slower low-theta synchrony supported object processing, and late high-theta synchrony selectively indexed ownership, irrespective of stimulus type. Whole-brain power analyses further revealed a frequency division between faces (beta/alpha) and objects (theta/delta), as well as earlier spectral modulations for self-related stimuli.
fMRI results identified ownership-related activations in right inferior temporal, middle frontal, inferior frontal, and superior parietal regions. Crucially, only the right inferior temporal gyrus showed stronger ownership effects for faces than objects, while frontal and parietal regions encoded ownership in a stimulus-independent manner. Functional connectivity analyses revealed distinct ownership-related subnetworks.
Together, these findings support a hybrid model in which stimulus-specific visual pathways interact with domain-general midfrontal and parietal mechanisms via recurrent, frequency-specific network dynamics to construct the perception of ownership.