Search research articles

ABOUT JoVE

Overview Leadership Blog JoVE Help Center

AUTHORS

Publishing Process Editorial Board Scope & Policies Peer Review FAQ Submit

LIBRARIANS

Testimonials Subscriptions Access Resources Library Advisory Board FAQ

RESEARCH

JoVE Journal Methods Collections JoVE Encyclopedia of Experiments Archive

EDUCATION

JoVE Core JoVE Business JoVE Science Education JoVE Lab Manual Faculty Resource Center Faculty Site

Terms & Conditions of Use

Related Concept Videos

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

Motor and Sensory Areas of the Cortex

The cerebral cortex, the brain's outermost layer, is pivotal in processing complex cognitive tasks, emotions, and various sensory inputs and executing voluntary motor activities. This intricate structure is divided into three primary functional areas: the motor areas, sensory areas, and association areas.
Motor Areas
The motor areas located in the frontal lobe are central to controlling voluntary movements. This region is further subdivided into the primary motor cortex and the premotor cortex....

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

Somatosensory, Motor, and Association Cortex

The somatosensory cortex in the parietal lobes is crucial for interpreting sensory data such as touch, temperature, and proprioception. The somatosensory cortex, situated in the parietal lobes, plays a vital role in interpreting sensory information like touch, temperature, and proprioception—awareness of body position. This specialized brain region features an organized structure wherein neurons at the top primarily process sensations originating from the lower body. In contrast, those at...

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association Areas of the Cortex

Association areas are regions of the cerebral cortex that do not have a specific sensory or motor function. Instead, they integrate and interpret information from various sources to enable higher cognitive processes such as memory, learning, and decision-making. Some key association areas include the following:
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,...

Vision

Vision

Vision is the result of light being detected and transduced into neural signals by the retina of the eye. This information is then further analyzed and interpreted by the brain. First, light enters the front of the eye and is focused by the cornea and lens onto the retina—a thin sheet of neural tissue lining the back of the eye. Because of refraction through the convex lens of the eye, images are projected onto the retina upside-down and reversed.

Parallel Processing

Parallel Processing

The brain processes sensory information rapidly due to parallel processing, which involves sending data across multiple neural pathways at the same time. This method allows the brain to manage various sensory qualities, such as shapes, colors, movements, and locations, all concurrently. For instance, when observing a forest landscape, the brain simultaneously processes the movement of leaves, the shapes of trees, the depth between them, and the various shades of green. This enables a quick and...

Visual System

Visual System

Light enters the eye through the cornea, a transparent, dome-shaped surface covering the surface of the eyeball that helps to direct and focus incoming light. This light is then channeled toward the pupil, an adjustable opening whose size is controlled by the iris. The iris, a pigmented muscle, regulates the amount of light entering the eye by contracting or dilating the pupil, thereby ensuring optimal light levels for clear vision.
Once through the pupil, the light passes through the lens, a...

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by

Same author

Predicting errors before they occur using trial-by-trial dynamics of pre-error and post-error behavior.

Attention, perception & psychophysics·2026

Same author

The visual perks of (not) being a wallflower: sociality is a stronger predictor of individual differences in face recognition than childhood experiences.

Vision research·2026

Same author

Representation-specific recruitment: Bidirectional interactions between working memory and perception for motion direction and face identity.

Attention, perception & psychophysics·2026

Same author

Repeated exposure to task-relevant and task-irrelevant information - and their interaction - affect visual search performance.

Attention, perception & psychophysics·2026

Same author

What behavioral relevance is (not).

Cognitive neuroscience·2026

Same author

Task irrelevant sounds influence visual attention through graded crossmodal semantic modulation.

Psychonomic bulletin & review·2026

Same journal

Tau protein as a regulator of mitochondrial function and dynamics.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026

Same journal

A scalable, dividing cell model for the robust propagation and quantification of human sporadic Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease prions.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026

Same journal

Epigenetic regulation of mesenchymal BMP signaling directs postnatal organ innervation.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026

Same journal

Single-shot wide-field biochemical imaging at 1 kHz frame rate.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026

Same journal

Morphogenesis and topological evolution of a frustrated nematic liquid crystal under confinement.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026

Same journal

B cell-intrinsic CXCR3 drives efficient generation of ectopic pulmonary germinal center responses to influenza A virus infection.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America·2026

See all related articles

Search research articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: May 2, 2026

Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns

Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns

Published on: May 12, 2019

Task context impacts visual object processing differentially across the cortex.

Assaf Harel¹, Dwight J Kravitz, Chris I Baker

¹Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892.

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America

|February 26, 2014

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Observer goals significantly influence how the brain processes visual information. Task-specific goals create distinct neural representations in higher brain areas but not early visual cortex, showing top-down control in perception.

Keywords:

fMRI object recognition occipitotemporal cortex top-down processing vision

More Related Videos

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings

Published on: August 1, 2018

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: May 2, 2026

Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns

Stimulus-specific Cortical Visual Evoked Potential Morphological Patterns

Published on: May 12, 2019

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Eye Tracking During Visually Situated Language Comprehension: Flexibility and Limitations in Uncovering Visual Context Effects

Published on: November 30, 2018

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings

Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings

Published on: August 1, 2018

Area of Science:

Neuroscience
Cognitive Science
Visual Perception

Background:

Visual perception integrates bottom-up sensory data and top-down internally generated signals.
Current models often focus on feed-forward processing, with less understanding of top-down influences on complex visual representations.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate how observer goals modulate object processing across the cortex.
To determine if and how task demands impact neural representations of identical visual stimuli.

Main Methods:

Examined neural responses to diverse objects under six distinct tasks (physical vs. conceptual properties).
Used multivoxel pattern analysis to decode object identity and task information from brain activity.
Compared neural representations within and across tasks using identical stimuli.

Main Results:

Task significantly impacted object processing across the cortex, with differential effects.
Ventral temporal and prefrontal cortex showed task-dependent object representations; early visual cortex showed task-independent representations.
Task information was present early in processing, with higher cortical areas decoding task type and specifics, while early visual cortex only decoded individual physical tasks.

Conclusions:

Object processing is extensively modulated by the observer's behavioral goals.
Top-down signals play a crucial role in constraining and shaping visual representations based on task demands.