Neural evidence for intermediate representations in object recognition
Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 20, 2026

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings
Published on: August 1, 2018
Kenneth J Hayworth1, Irving Biederman
1Neuroscience Program, University of Southern California, Hedco Neurosciences Bldg, Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520, USA. khaywort@usc.edu
Abstract:
The lateral occipital complex (LOC), a cortical region critical for human object recognition, has been shown to primarily code the shape, rather than the surface properties, of an object. But what aspects of shape? Using an fMRI-adaptation (fMRI-a) paradigm in which subjects judged whether two contour-deleted images of objects were the same or different exemplars, virtually all the adaptation in LOC [especially in LOC's most anterior portion (pFs)] could be attributed to repetition of the parts, almost none to the repetition of local image features, such as lines or vertices, templates, or basic- or subordinate-level concepts of the object. These results support the hypothesis that the neural representation of shape in LOC is an intermediate one, encoding the parts of an object.
Related Concept Videos
Vision
Association Areas of the Cortex
Prefrontal Association Area: This area is located in the frontal lobe and is involved in planning, decision-making, and moderating social behavior. It connects with primary motor areas,...
Parallel Processing
The Representativeness Heuristic
Neural Circuits
Neuronal pools are collections of nerve cells with similar functions and interact through chemical and electrical signals. These pools include both interneurons (the central neural circuit nodes that...

