Skip Navigation



Cerebral Cortex Advance Access published online on November 21, 2007
Cerebral Cortex, doi:10.1093/cercor/bhm196
This Article
Right arrow Full Text
Right arrow Full Text (PDF)
Right arrow Supplementary Material
Right arrow All Versions of this Article:
18/7/1676    most recent
bhm196v1
Right arrow Alert me when this article is cited
Right arrow Alert me if a correction is posted
Services
Right arrow Email this article to a friend
Right arrow Similar articles in this journal
Right arrow Similar articles in PubMed
Right arrow Alert me to new issues of the journal
Right arrow Add to My Personal Archive
Right arrow Download to citation manager
Right arrowRequest Permissions
Google Scholar
Right arrow Articles by Op de Beeck, H. P.
Right arrow Articles by DiCarlo, J. J.
Right arrow Search for Related Content
PubMed
Right arrow PubMed Citation
Right arrow Articles by Op de Beeck, H. P.
Right arrow Articles by DiCarlo, J. J.
Social Bookmarking
Add to CiteULike   Add to Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us  
What's this?

© The Author 2007. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

A Stable Topography of Selectivity for Unfamiliar Shape Classes in Monkey Inferior Temporal Cortex

Hans P. Op de Beeck1,2, Jennifer A. Deutsch1, Wim Vanduffel3,4, Nancy G. Kanwisher1,3 and James J. DiCarlo1,3

1 McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA, 2 Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, K.U. Leuven, B3000 Leuven, Belgium, 3 Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA 02129, USA, 4 Laboratorium voor Neuro- & Psychofysiologie, K.U. Leuven Medical School, Leuven B3001, Belgium

Address correspondence to Hans P. Op de Beeck, Laboratory of Experimental Psychology, K.U.Leuven, Tiensestraat 102, B3000 Leuven, Belgium. Email: hans.opdebeeck{at}psy.kuleuven.be.

The inferior temporal (IT) cortex in monkeys plays a central role in visual object recognition and learning. Previous studies have observed patches in IT cortex with strong selectivity for highly familiar object classes (e.g., faces), but the principles behind this functional organization are largely unknown due to the many properties that distinguish different object classes. To unconfound shape from meaning and memory, we scanned monkeys with functional magnetic resonance imaging while they viewed classes of initially novel objects. Our data revealed a topography of selectivity for these novel object classes across IT cortex. We found that this selectivity topography was highly reproducible and remarkably stable across a 3-month interval during which monkeys were extensively trained to discriminate among exemplars within one of the object classes. Furthermore, this selectivity topography was largely unaffected by changes in behavioral task and object retinal position, both of which preserve shape. In contrast, it was strongly influenced by changes in object shape. The topography was partially related to, but not explained by, the previously described pattern of face selectivity. Together, these results suggest that IT cortex contains a large-scale map of shape that is largely independent of meaning, familiarity, and behavioral task.

Key Words: categorization • fMRI • learning • object recognition • primate • visual perception


Add to CiteULike CiteULike   Add to Connotea Connotea   Add to Del.icio.us Del.icio.us    What's this?




Disclaimer:
Please note that abstracts for content published before 1996 were created through digital scanning and may therefore not exactly replicate the text of the original print issues. All efforts have been made to ensure accuracy, but the Publisher will not be held responsible for any remaining inaccuracies. If you require any further clarification, please contact our Customer Services Department.