Multiple independent lines of research have suggested that faces are a special class of stimulus. In the last 15 years, neuroimaging studies have shown greater activation to faces than to any other stimulus category in specific areas of cortex, leading to the idea that a portion of the fusiform gyrus, also known as the fusiform face are (FFA), is face-selective (Kanwisher, McDermott, & Chun, 1997). While findings from neuroimaging, behavioural, and lesion studies support the idea of a specialised visual system for faces, it is still debated whether face sensitivity arises from either an inherent face modular network or a general processing network manifesting perceptual expertise. A modular network is an abstract cognitive concept representing functions of the brain that require rapid, automatic cognitive processing. Modules are argued to be domain specific and information encapsulated such that they do not need to interact with other cognitive processes to function. In contrast to face modularity, the expertise account of face processing argues that faces recruit domain general processing mechanisms, which are not unique to faces, but finely tuned from extensive perceptual experience. In other words, the expertise account considers faces as stimuli for which almost everyone is a skilled expert. Attempts to make progress in the debate opposing domain specific (modular) vs. domain general (expertise-based) processing has led to investigations into neurophysiological indices of face processing. Alongside the vast behavioural literature portraying the human face as a unique and special visual stimulus, electrophysiological studies have focused on a negative polarity component from the N1 family and peaking at around 170 ms, the N170. The N170 is maximal over parietal-occipital electrode sites, and widely acknowledged as largest in amplitude to faces (Bentin, Allison, Puce, Perez, & McCarthy, 1996). Since the seminal study by Bentin et al. (1996), it has been claimed repeatedly that no visual stimulus other than faces produces negativities as pronounced in the N1 range (Itier & Taylor, 2004a). So robust is this finding that the N170 face effect has been replicated and championed to the point where it is no longer considered a hypothetical effect but rather an established fact (Eimer, 2011; Rossion & Jacques, 2008).