Abstract
We investigate the brain activations when identifying a newly encountered individual as being the same as a person previously perceived, a fundamental but seldom acknowledged process. In an identity condition, two faces had to be identified as the same person in contrast to a control condition, in which two faces had to be recognised as belonging to similar looking twins. Our results demonstrate an increase of neural activation in frontal as well as in parietal areas including the left inferior parietal lobe and the precuneus during identification. We introduce mental files theory to model this process as a linking of co-referential files and identify important connections to other domains in neurological and cognitive science (e.g., delusional misidentification syndromes, theory of mind).