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Spikiness and animacy as potential organizing principles of human ventral visual cortex
1Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, 111 21st Ave S, Nashville, TN 37240, United States.
Cerebral Cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991)
|March 23, 2023
Summary
Researchers explored object organization in the human brain. While spikiness and animacy influence visual processing in the inferotemporal (IT) cortex, distinct maps like those in macaques were not found, suggesting entangled category and feature selectivity.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Cognitive Science
- Visual Perception
Background:
- The ventral visual pathway's organization is crucial for object recognition.
- Macaque inferotemporal (IT) cortex exhibits topographical maps based on object spikiness and animacy.
- Two previously unidentified cortical networks were linked to inanimate-spiky and inanimate-stubby objects in macaques.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate if a similar functional organization exists in the human IT cortex.
- To determine the role of object spikiness and animacy in human visual object processing.
- To compare the organizational principles of human and macaque IT cortex.
Main Methods:
- Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) at 7 Tesla was used to record brain activity in humans.
- Participants viewed object stimuli and images from classic object categories (bodies, faces, houses).
- Analysis focused on contrasts revealing the spikiness-animacy object space and category selectivity.
Main Results:
- Extensive activation was observed across the human IT cortex when analyzing the spikiness-animacy space.
- Unlike macaques, clear, sequential topographical maps were not identified in humans.
- Selectivity for spikiness-animacy was intertwined with category selectivity, with novel preferences found in category-selective regions.
Conclusions:
- Spikiness emerges as a significant organizing principle in the human IT cortex.
- Human IT organization shows a complex interplay between feature-based (spikiness) and category-based selectivity.
- Category-selective regions in humans possess functional substructure related to object features like spikiness.
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