Dataset Information

Real-world scene representations in high-level visual cortex: it's the spaces more than the places.

ABSTRACT: Real-world scenes are incredibly complex and heterogeneous, yet we are able to identify and categorize them effortlessly. In humans, the ventral temporal parahippocampal place area (PPA) has been implicated in scene processing, but scene information is contained in many visual areas, leaving their specific contributions unclear. Although early theories of PPA emphasized its role in spatial processing, more recent reports of its function have emphasized semantic or contextual processing. Here, using functional imaging, we reconstructed the organization of scene representations across human ventral visual cortex by analyzing the distributed response to 96 diverse real-world scenes. We found that, although individual scenes could be decoded in both PPA and early visual cortex (EVC), the structure of representations in these regions was vastly different. In both regions, spatial rather than semantic factors defined the structure of representations. However, in PPA, representations were defined primarily by the spatial factor of expanse (open, closed) and in EVC primarily by distance (near, far). Furthermore, independent behavioral ratings of expanse and distance correlated strongly with representations in PPA and peripheral EVC, respectively. In neither region was content (manmade, natural) a major contributor to the overall organization. Furthermore, the response of PPA could not be used to decode the high-level semantic category of scenes even when spatial factors were held constant, nor could category be decoded across different distances. These findings demonstrate, contrary to recent reports, that the response PPA primarily reflects spatial, not categorical or contextual, aspects of real-world scenes.

SUBMITTER: Kravitz DJ

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3115537 | biostudies-literature | 2011 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Publications

Real-world scene representations in high-level visual cortex: it's the spaces more than the places.

Kravitz Dwight J DJ Peng Cynthia S CS Baker Chris I CI

The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience 20110501 20

Real-world scenes are incredibly complex and heterogeneous, yet we are able to identify and categorize them effortlessly. In humans, the ventral temporal parahippocampal place area (PPA) has been implicated in scene processing, but scene information is contained in many visual areas, leaving their specific contributions unclear. Although early theories of PPA emphasized its role in spatial processing, more recent reports of its function have emphasized semantic or contextual processing. Here, us ...[more]

PMID: 21593316

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Project description:In complex real-world scenes, image content is conveyed by a large collection of intertwined visual features. The visual system disentangles these features in order to extract information about image content. Here, we investigate the role of one integral component: the content of spatial frequencies in an image. Specifically, we measure the amount of image content carried by low versus high spatial frequencies for the representation of real-world scenes in scene-selective regions of human visual cortex. To this end, we attempted to decode scene categories from the brain activity patterns of participants viewing scene images that contained the full spatial frequency spectrum, only low spatial frequencies, or only high spatial frequencies, all carefully controlled for contrast and luminance. Contrary to the findings from numerous behavioral studies and computational models that have highlighted how low spatial frequencies preferentially encode image content, decoding of scene categories from the scene-selective brain regions, including the parahippocampal place area (PPA), was significantly more accurate for high than low spatial frequency images. In fact, decoding accuracy was just as high for high spatial frequency images as for images containing the full spatial frequency spectrum in scene-selective areas PPA, RSC, OPA and object selective area LOC. We also found an interesting dissociation between the posterior and anterior subdivisions of PPA: categories were decodable from both high and low spatial frequency scenes in posterior PPA but only from high spatial frequency scenes in anterior PPA; and spatial frequency was explicitly decodable from posterior but not anterior PPA. Our results are consistent with recent findings that line drawings, which consist almost entirely of high spatial frequencies, elicit a neural representation of scene categories that is equivalent to that of full-spectrum color photographs. Collectively, these findings demonstrate the importance of high spatial frequencies for conveying the content of complex real-world scenes.

Dataset Information

Real-world scene representations in high-level visual cortex: it's the spaces more than the places.

Publications

Real-world scene representations in high-level visual cortex: it's the spaces more than the places.

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