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Wegner-Clemens K, Malcolm GL, Shomstein S. Predicting attentional allocation in real-world environments: The need to investigate crossmodal semantic guidance. WILEY INTERDISCIPLINARY REVIEWS. COGNITIVE SCIENCE 2024; 15:e1675. [PMID: 38243393 DOI: 10.1002/wcs.1675] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/25/2023] [Revised: 12/01/2023] [Accepted: 12/07/2023] [Indexed: 01/21/2024]
Abstract
Real-world environments are multisensory, meaningful, and highly complex. To parse these environments in a highly efficient manner, a subset of this information must be selected both within and across modalities. However, the bulk of attention research has been conducted within sensory modalities, with a particular focus on vision. Visual attention research has made great strides, with over a century of research methodically identifying the underlying mechanisms that allow us to select critical visual information. Spatial attention, attention to features, and object-based attention have all been studied extensively. More recently, research has established semantics (meaning) as a key component to allocating attention in real-world scenes, with the meaning of an item or environment affecting visual attentional selection. However, a full understanding of how semantic information modulates real-world attention requires studying more than vision in isolation. The world provides semantic information across all senses, but with this extra information comes greater complexity. Here, we summarize visual attention (including semantic-based visual attention), crossmodal attention, and argue for the importance of studying crossmodal semantic guidance of attention. This article is categorized under: Psychology > Attention Psychology > Perception and Psychophysics.
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Affiliation(s)
- Kira Wegner-Clemens
- Psychological and Brain Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
| | | | - Sarah Shomstein
- Psychological and Brain Sciences, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA
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2
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DeYoe EA, Huddleston W, Greenberg AS. Are neuronal mechanisms of attention universal across human sensory and motor brain maps? Psychon Bull Rev 2024:10.3758/s13423-024-02495-3. [PMID: 38587756 DOI: 10.3758/s13423-024-02495-3] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Accepted: 03/10/2024] [Indexed: 04/09/2024]
Abstract
One's experience of shifting attention from the color to the smell to the act of picking a flower seems like a unitary process applied, at will, to one modality after another. Yet, the unique and separable experiences of sight versus smell versus movement might suggest that the neural mechanisms of attention have been separately optimized to employ each modality to its greatest advantage. Moreover, addressing the issue of universality can be particularly difficult due to a paucity of existing cross-modal comparisons and a dearth of neurophysiological methods that can be applied equally well across disparate modalities. Here we outline some of the conceptual and methodological issues related to this problem and present an instructive example of an experimental approach that can be applied widely throughout the human brain to permit detailed, quantitative comparison of attentional mechanisms across modalities. The ultimate goal is to spur efforts across disciplines to provide a large and varied database of empirical observations that will either support the notion of a universal neural substrate for attention or more clearly identify the degree to which attentional mechanisms are specialized for each modality.
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Affiliation(s)
- Edgar A DeYoe
- Department of Radiology, Medical College of Wisconsin, 8701 Watertown Plank Rd, Milwaukee, WI, 53226, USA.
- , Signal Mountain, USA.
| | - Wendy Huddleston
- School of Rehabilitation Sciences and Technology, College of Health Professions and Sciences, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee, 3409 N. Downer Ave, Milwaukee, WI, 53211, USA
| | - Adam S Greenberg
- Department of Biomedical Engineering, Medical College of Wisconsin and Marquette University, Milwaukee, WI, 53226, USA
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3
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O'Bryan SR, Jung S, Mohan AJ, Scolari M. Category Learning Selectively Enhances Representations of Boundary-Adjacent Exemplars in Early Visual Cortex. J Neurosci 2024; 44:e1039232023. [PMID: 37968121 PMCID: PMC10860654 DOI: 10.1523/jneurosci.1039-23.2023] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 05/16/2023] [Revised: 08/31/2023] [Accepted: 10/23/2023] [Indexed: 11/17/2023] Open
Abstract
Category learning and visual perception are fundamentally interactive processes, such that successful categorization often depends on the ability to make fine visual discriminations between stimuli that vary on continuously valued dimensions. Research suggests that category learning can improve perceptual discrimination along the stimulus dimensions that predict category membership and that these perceptual enhancements are a byproduct of functional plasticity in the visual system. However, the precise mechanisms underlying learning-dependent sensory modulation in categorization are not well understood. We hypothesized that category learning leads to a representational sharpening of underlying sensory populations tuned to values at or near the category boundary. Furthermore, such sharpening should occur largely during active learning of new categories. These hypotheses were tested using fMRI and a theoretically constrained model of vision to quantify changes in the shape of orientation representations while human adult subjects learned to categorize physically identical stimuli based on either an orientation rule (N = 12) or an orthogonal spatial frequency rule (N = 13). Consistent with our predictions, modeling results revealed relatively enhanced reconstructed representations of stimulus orientation in visual cortex (V1-V3) only for orientation rule learners. Moreover, these reconstructed representations varied as a function of distance from the category boundary, such that representations for challenging stimuli near the boundary were significantly sharper than those for stimuli at the category centers. These results support an efficient model of plasticity wherein only the sensory populations tuned to the most behaviorally relevant regions of feature space are enhanced during category learning.
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Affiliation(s)
- Sean R O'Bryan
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409
| | - Shinyoung Jung
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409
| | - Anto J Mohan
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409
| | - Miranda Scolari
- Department of Psychological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas 79409
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4
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Heitmann C, Zhan M, Linke M, Hölig C, Kekunnaya R, van Hoof R, Goebel R, Röder B. Early visual experience refines the retinotopic organization within and across visual cortical regions. Curr Biol 2023; 33:4950-4959.e4. [PMID: 37918397 DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2023.10.010] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/28/2022] [Revised: 09/29/2023] [Accepted: 10/06/2023] [Indexed: 11/04/2023]
Abstract
Early visual areas are retinotopically organized in human and non-human primates. Population receptive field (pRF) size increases with eccentricity and from lower- to higher-level visual areas. Furthermore, the cortical magnification factor (CMF), a measure of how much cortical space is devoted to each degree of visual angle, is typically larger for foveal as opposed to peripheral regions of the visual field. Whether this fine-scale organization within and across visual areas depends on early visual experience has yet been unknown. Here, we employed 7T functional magnetic resonance imaging pRF mapping to assess the retinotopic organization of early visual regions (i.e., V1, V2, and V3) in eight sight recovery individuals with a history of congenital blindness until a maximum of 4 years of age. Compared with sighted controls, foveal pRF sizes in these individuals were larger, and pRF sizes did not show the typical increase with eccentricity and down the visual cortical processing stream (V1-V2-V3). Cortical magnification was overall diminished and decreased less from foveal to parafoveal visual field locations. Furthermore, cortical magnification correlated with visual acuity in sight recovery individuals. The results of this study suggest that early visual experience is essential for refining a presumably innate prototypical retinotopic organization in humans within and across visual areas, which seems to be crucial for acquiring full visual capabilities.
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Affiliation(s)
- Carolin Heitmann
- Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology Lab, Faculty of Psychology and Movement Sciences, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 11, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
| | - Minye Zhan
- U992 (Cognitive neuroimaging unit), NeuroSpin, INSERM-CEA, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France
| | - Madita Linke
- Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology Lab, Faculty of Psychology and Movement Sciences, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 11, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Cordula Hölig
- Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology Lab, Faculty of Psychology and Movement Sciences, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 11, 20146 Hamburg, Germany
| | - Ramesh Kekunnaya
- U992 (Cognitive neuroimaging unit), NeuroSpin, INSERM-CEA, 91191 Gif sur Yvette, France
| | - Rick van Hoof
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Universiteitssingel 40, 6229 ER Maastricht, the Netherlands
| | - Rainer Goebel
- Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty of Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Universiteitssingel 40, 6229 ER Maastricht, the Netherlands; Department of Development and Research, Brain Innovation B.V., Oxfordlaan 55, 6229 EV Maastricht, the Netherlands
| | - Brigitte Röder
- Biological Psychology and Neuropsychology Lab, Faculty of Psychology and Movement Sciences, Universität Hamburg, Von-Melle-Park 11, 20146 Hamburg, Germany; Child Sight Institute, Jasti V. Ramanamma Children's Eye Care Center, LV Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad, Telangana 500034, India.
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5
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Schintu S, Kravitz DJ, Silson EH, Cunningham CA, Wassermann EM, Shomstein S. Dynamic changes in spatial representation within the posterior parietal cortex in response to visuomotor adaptation. Cereb Cortex 2023; 33:3651-3663. [PMID: 35989306 PMCID: PMC10068280 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhac298] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Grants] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/17/2022] [Revised: 07/07/2022] [Accepted: 07/08/2022] [Indexed: 11/14/2022] Open
Abstract
Recent studies used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) population receptive field (pRF) mapping to demonstrate that retinotopic organization extends from the primary visual cortex to ventral and dorsal visual pathways, by quantifying visual field maps, receptive field size, and laterality throughout multiple areas. Visuospatial representation in the posterior parietal cortex (PPC) is modulated by attentional deployment, raising the question of whether spatial representation in the PPC is dynamic and flexible, and whether this flexibility contributes to visuospatial learning. To answer this question, changes in spatial representation within the PPC and early visual cortex were recorded with pRF mapping before and after prism adaptation (PA)-a well-established visuomotor technique that modulates visuospatial attention according to the direction of the visual displacement. As predicted, results showed that adaptation to left-shifting prisms increases pRF size in left PPC, while leaving space representation in the early visual cortex unchanged. This is the first evidence that PA drives a dynamic reorganization of response profiles in the PPC. These findings show that spatial representations in the PPC not only reflect changes driven by attentional deployment but dynamically change in response to modulation of external factors such as manipulation of the visuospatial input during visuomotor adaptation.
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Affiliation(s)
- S Schintu
- Behavioral Neurology Unit, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The George Washington University, 2125 G St NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA
- Center for Mind/BrainSciences-CIMeC, University of Trento, Via Matteo del Ben, 5/B, Rovereto, TN, 38068, Italy
| | - D J Kravitz
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The George Washington University, 2125 G St NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA
| | - E H Silson
- Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, Section on Learning and Plasticity, National Institute of Mental Health, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
- Department of Psychology, School of Philosophy, Psychology and Language Sciences, The University of Edinburgh, 7 George Square, Edinburgh, EH8 9AD, UK
| | - C A Cunningham
- Behavioral Neurology Unit, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
| | - E M Wassermann
- Behavioral Neurology Unit, National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke, 10 Center Drive, Bethesda, MD 20814, USA
| | - S Shomstein
- Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, The George Washington University, 2125 G St NW, Washington, DC 20052, USA
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Direct comparison of contralateral bias and face/scene selectivity in human occipitotemporal cortex. Brain Struct Funct 2021; 227:1405-1421. [PMID: 34727232 PMCID: PMC9046350 DOI: 10.1007/s00429-021-02411-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 04/13/2021] [Accepted: 10/08/2021] [Indexed: 10/27/2022]
Abstract
Human visual cortex is organised broadly according to two major principles: retinotopy (the spatial mapping of the retina in cortex) and category-selectivity (preferential responses to specific categories of stimuli). Historically, these principles were considered anatomically separate, with retinotopy restricted to the occipital cortex and category-selectivity emerging in the lateral-occipital and ventral-temporal cortex. However, recent studies show that category-selective regions exhibit systematic retinotopic biases, for example exhibiting stronger activation for stimuli presented in the contra- compared to the ipsilateral visual field. It is unclear, however, whether responses within category-selective regions are more strongly driven by retinotopic location or by category preference, and if there are systematic differences between category-selective regions in the relative strengths of these preferences. Here, we directly compare contralateral and category preferences by measuring fMRI responses to scene and face stimuli presented in the left or right visual field and computing two bias indices: a contralateral bias (response to the contralateral minus ipsilateral visual field) and a face/scene bias (preferred response to scenes compared to faces, or vice versa). We compare these biases within and between scene- and face-selective regions and across the lateral and ventral surfaces of the visual cortex more broadly. We find an interaction between surface and bias: lateral surface regions show a stronger contralateral than face/scene bias, whilst ventral surface regions show the opposite. These effects are robust across and within subjects, and appear to reflect large-scale, smoothly varying gradients. Together, these findings support distinct functional roles for the lateral and ventral visual cortex in terms of the relative importance of the spatial location of stimuli during visual information processing.
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Strappini F, Wilf M, Karp O, Goldberg H, Harel M, Furman-Haran E, Golan T, Malach R. Resting-State Activity in High-Order Visual Areas as a Window into Natural Human Brain Activations. Cereb Cortex 2020; 29:3618-3635. [PMID: 30395164 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhy242] [Citation(s) in RCA: 9] [Impact Index Per Article: 2.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 12/07/2017] [Revised: 08/30/2018] [Accepted: 09/06/2018] [Indexed: 02/05/2023] Open
Abstract
A major limitation of conventional human brain research has been its basis in highly artificial laboratory experiments. Due to technical constraints, little is known about the nature of cortical activations during ecological real life. We have previously proposed the "spontaneous trait reactivation (STR)" hypothesis arguing that resting-state patterns, which emerge spontaneously in the absence of external stimulus, reflect the statistics of habitual cortical activations during real life. Therefore, these patterns can serve as a window into daily life cortical activity. A straightforward prediction of this hypothesis is that spontaneous patterns should preferentially correlate to patterns generated by naturalistic stimuli compared with artificial ones. Here we targeted high-level category-selective visual areas and tested this prediction by comparing BOLD functional connectivity patterns formed during rest to patterns formed in response to naturalistic stimuli, as well as to more artificial category-selective, dynamic stimuli. Our results revealed a significant correlation between the resting-state patterns and functional connectivity patterns generated by naturalistic stimuli. Furthermore, the correlations to naturalistic stimuli were significantly higher than those found between resting-state patterns and those generated by artificial control stimuli. These findings provide evidence of a stringent link between spontaneous patterns and the activation patterns during natural vision.
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Affiliation(s)
| | - Meytal Wilf
- Neurobiology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel.,Department of Clinical Neurosciences, MySpace Lab, Lausanne University Hospital, Lausanne, Switzerland
| | - Ofer Karp
- Neurobiology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Hagar Goldberg
- Neurobiology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Michal Harel
- Neurobiology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Edna Furman-Haran
- Life Sciences Core Facilities Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
| | - Tal Golan
- The Edmund and Lily Safra Center for Brain Sciences, Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel
| | - Rafael Malach
- Neurobiology Department, Weizmann Institute of Science, Rehovot, Israel
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8
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Chen H, Naya Y. Forward Processing of Object-Location Association from the Ventral Stream to Medial Temporal Lobe in Nonhuman Primates. Cereb Cortex 2020; 30:1260-1271. [PMID: 31408097 DOI: 10.1093/cercor/bhz164] [Citation(s) in RCA: 14] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/29/2019] [Revised: 06/25/2019] [Accepted: 06/25/2019] [Indexed: 12/13/2022] Open
Abstract
While the hippocampus (HPC) is a prime candidate combining object identity and location due to its strong connections to the ventral and dorsal pathways via surrounding medial temporal lobe (MTL) areas, recent physiological studies have reported spatial information in the ventral pathway and its downstream target in MTL. However, it remains unknown whether the object-location association proceeds along the ventral MTL pathway before HPC. To address this question, we recorded neuronal activity from MTL and area anterior inferotemporal cortex (TE) of two macaques gazing at an object to retain its identity and location in each trial. The results showed significant effects of object-location association at a single-unit level in TE, perirhinal cortex (PRC), and HPC, but not in the parahippocampal cortex. Notably, a clear area difference emerged in the association form: 1) representations of object identity were added to those of subjects' viewing location in TE; 2) PRC signaled both the additive form and the conjunction of the two inputs; and 3) HPC signaled only the conjunction signal. These results suggest that the object and location signals are combined stepwise at TE and PRC each time primates view an object, and PRC may provide HPC with the conjunctional signal, which might be used for encoding episodic memory.
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Affiliation(s)
- He Chen
- Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, No. 52, Haidian Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100805, China.,Academy for Advanced Interdisciplinary Studies, Peking University, No. 52, Haidian Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100805, China
| | - Yuji Naya
- School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, No. 52, Haidian Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100805, China.,Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, No. 52, Haidian Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100805, China.,IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, No. 52, Haidian Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100805, China.,Beijing Key Laboratory of Behavior and Mental Health, Peking University, No. 52, Haidian Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100805, China.,Interdisciplinary Institute of Neuroscience and Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou 310029, China
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9
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Kaiser D, Quek GL, Cichy RM, Peelen MV. Object Vision in a Structured World. Trends Cogn Sci 2019; 23:672-685. [PMID: 31147151 PMCID: PMC7612023 DOI: 10.1016/j.tics.2019.04.013] [Citation(s) in RCA: 73] [Impact Index Per Article: 14.6] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 02/22/2019] [Revised: 04/15/2019] [Accepted: 04/30/2019] [Indexed: 01/02/2023]
Abstract
In natural vision, objects appear at typical locations, both with respect to visual space (e.g., an airplane in the upper part of a scene) and other objects (e.g., a lamp above a table). Recent studies have shown that object vision is strongly adapted to such positional regularities. In this review we synthesize these developments, highlighting that adaptations to positional regularities facilitate object detection and recognition, and sharpen the representations of objects in visual cortex. These effects are pervasive across various types of high-level content. We posit that adaptations to real-world structure collectively support optimal usage of limited cortical processing resources. Taking positional regularities into account will thus be essential for understanding efficient object vision in the real world.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Kaiser
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
| | - Genevieve L Quek
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands
| | - Radoslaw M Cichy
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany; Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Marius V Peelen
- Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
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Elder JH, Oleskiw TD, Fruend I. The role of global cues in the perceptual grouping of natural shapes. J Vis 2018; 18:14. [DOI: 10.1167/18.12.14] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/24/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
- James H. Elder
- Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, Canada
- http://www.elderlab.yorku.ca/
| | - Timothy D. Oleskiw
- Centre for Neural Science, New York University, New York, NY, USA
- http://
| | - Ingo Fruend
- Centre for Vision Research, York University, Toronto, Canada
- https://www.yorku.ca/
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11
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Karimi-Rouzbahani H. Three-stage processing of category and variation information by entangled interactive mechanisms of peri-occipital and peri-frontal cortices. Sci Rep 2018; 8:12213. [PMID: 30111859 PMCID: PMC6093927 DOI: 10.1038/s41598-018-30601-8] [Citation(s) in RCA: 11] [Impact Index Per Article: 1.8] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Download PDF] [Figures] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 01/18/2018] [Accepted: 08/02/2018] [Indexed: 11/30/2022] Open
Abstract
Object recognition has been a central question in human vision research. The general consensus is that the ventral and dorsal visual streams are the major processing pathways undertaking objects' category and variation processing. This overlooks mounting evidence supporting the role of peri-frontal areas in category processing. Yet, many aspects of visual processing in peri-frontal areas have remained unattended including whether these areas play role only during active recognition and whether they interact with lower visual areas or process information independently. To address these questions, subjects were presented with a set of variation-controlled object images while their EEG were recorded. Considerable amounts of category and variation information were decodable from occipital, parietal, temporal and prefrontal electrodes. Using information-selectivity indices, phase and Granger causality analyses, three processing stages were identified showing distinct directions of information transaction between peri-frontal and peri-occipital areas suggesting their parallel yet interactive role in visual processing. A brain-plausible model supported the possibility of interactive mechanisms in peri-occipital and peri-frontal areas. These findings, while promoting the role of prefrontal areas in object recognition, extend their contributions from active recognition, in which peri-frontal to peri-occipital pathways are activated by higher cognitive processes, to the general sensory-driven object and variation processing.
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Affiliation(s)
- Hamid Karimi-Rouzbahani
- Department of Electrical Engineering, Shahid Rajaee Teacher Training University, Tehran, Iran.
- Perception in Action Research Centre & Department of Cognitive Science, Faculty of Human Sciences, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Cognition and Its Disorders, Macquarie University, Sydney, NSW 2109, Australia.
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12
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Kaiser D, Cichy RM. Typical visual-field locations enhance processing in object-selective channels of human occipital cortex. J Neurophysiol 2018; 120:848-853. [DOI: 10.1152/jn.00229.2018] [Citation(s) in RCA: 21] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.5] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Abstract
Natural environments consist of multiple objects, many of which repeatedly occupy similar locations within a scene. For example, hats are seen on people’s heads, while shoes are most often seen close to the ground. Such positional regularities bias the distribution of objects across the visual field: hats are more often encountered in the upper visual field, while shoes are more often encountered in the lower visual field. Here we tested the hypothesis that typical visual field locations of objects facilitate cortical processing. We recorded functional MRI while participants viewed images of objects that were associated with upper or lower visual field locations. Using multivariate classification, we show that object information can be more successfully decoded from response patterns in object-selective lateral occipital cortex (LO) when the objects are presented in their typical location (e.g., shoe in the lower visual field) than when they are presented in an atypical location (e.g., shoe in the upper visual field). In a functional connectivity analysis, we relate this benefit to increased coupling between LO and early visual cortex, suggesting that typical object positioning facilitates information propagation across the visual hierarchy. Together these results suggest that object representations in occipital visual cortex are tuned to the structure of natural environments. This tuning may support object perception in spatially structured environments. NEW & NOTEWORTHY In the real world, objects appear in predictable spatial locations. Hats, commonly appearing on people’s heads, often fall into the upper visual field. Shoes, mostly appearing on people’s feet, often fall into the lower visual field. Here we used functional MRI to demonstrate that such regularities facilitate cortical processing: Objects encountered in their typical locations are coded more efficiently, which may allow us to effortlessly recognize objects in natural environments.
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Affiliation(s)
- Daniel Kaiser
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
| | - Radoslaw M. Cichy
- Department of Education and Psychology, Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Berlin School of Mind and Brain, Humboldt-Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
- Bernstein Center for Computational Neuroscience Berlin, Berlin, Germany
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13
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Spatial and non-spatial aspects of visual attention: Interactive cognitive mechanisms and neural underpinnings. Neuropsychologia 2016; 92:1-6. [DOI: 10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2016.08.002] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Indexed: 11/18/2022]
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