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Updated: Dec 20, 2025
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Investigating Object Representations in the Macaque Dorsal Visual Stream Using Single-unit Recordings
Published on: August 1, 2018
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Topographic signatures of global object perception in human visual cortex
Susanne Stoll1, Nonie J Finlayson1, D Samuel Schwarzkopf1
1Experimental Psychology, University College London, 26 Bedford Way, London, WC1H 0AP, UK.
Neuroimage
|May 23, 2020
Summary
The brain suppresses responses in early visual areas and enhances them in higher object-sensitive cortex during global object perception. This enhancement-suppression mechanism is crucial for distinguishing figure from ground.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Visual Perception
Background:
- The human visual system efficiently integrates fragmented visual input into coherent global objects.
- Understanding the neural basis of global object perception, particularly how the brain represents it, remains a significant challenge.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the neural mechanisms underlying global object perception versus local element perception.
- To determine the role of higher object-sensitive cortex in perceptual grouping and figure-ground segregation.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) was employed to record brain activity.
- Population receptive fields were estimated and used to back-project brain activity into visual space using a searchlight procedure.
- A dynamic bistable stimulus was used, allowing perception of either global (grouped, coherent motion) or local (ungrouped, incoherent motion) elements.
Main Results:
- Global perception led to widespread suppression in lower visual cortex and enhancement in higher object-sensitive cortex.
- Higher object-sensitive cortex showed suppressed responses when global perception lacked shape grouping.
- Reducing stimulus size altered suppression patterns, confining them to stimulated sites with background enhancement.
Conclusions:
- Higher object-sensitive cortex plays a specific role in perceptual grouping, not a generic one.
- An enhancement-suppression mechanism in the brain mediates the perception of figure and ground.
- These findings elucidate the neural underpinnings of how the brain constructs a unified percept from fragmented visual information.
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