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Shared cognitive mechanisms involved in the processing of scene texture and scene shape.

ABSTRACT: Recent research has demonstrated that the parahippocampal place area represents both the shape and texture features of scenes, with the importance of each feature varying according to perceived scene category. Namely, shape features are predominately more diagnostic to the processing of artificial human-made scenes, while shape and texture are equally diagnostic in natural scene processing. However, to date little is known regarding the degree of interactivity or independence observed in the processing of these scene features. Furthermore, manipulating the scope of visual attention (i.e., globally vs. locally) when processing ensembles of multiple objects-stimuli that share a functional neuroanatomical link with scenes-has been shown to affect their cognitive visual representation. It remains unknown whether manipulating the scope of attention impacts scene processing in a similar manner. Using the well-established Garner speeded-classification behavioral paradigm, we investigated the influence of both feature diagnosticity and the scope of visual attention on potential interactivity or independence in the shape and texture processing of artificial human-made scenes. The results revealed asymmetric interference between scene shape and texture processing, with the more diagnostic feature (i.e., shape) interfering with the less diagnostic feature (i.e., texture), but not vice versa. Furthermore, this interference was attenuated and enhanced with more local and global visual processing strategies, respectively. These findings suggest that the scene shape and texture processing are mediated by shared cognitive mechanisms and that, although these representations are governed primarily via feature diagnosticity, they can nevertheless be influenced by the scope of visual attention.

SUBMITTER: Tharmaratnam V

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8297417 | biostudies-literature |

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Project description:How are complex visual entities such as scenes represented in the human brain? More concretely, along what visual and semantic dimensions are scenes encoded in memory? One hypothesis is that global spatial properties provide a basis for categorizing the neural response patterns arising from scenes. In contrast, non-spatial properties, such as single objects, also account for variance in neural responses. The list of critical scene dimensions has continued to grow--sometimes in a contradictory manner--coming to encompass properties such as geometric layout, big/small, crowded/sparse, and three-dimensionality. We demonstrate that these dimensions may be better understood within the more general framework of associative properties. That is, across both the perceptual and semantic domains, features of scene representations are related to one another through learned associations. Critically, the components of such associations are consistent with the dimensions that are typically invoked to account for scene understanding and its neural bases. Using fMRI, we show that non-scene stimuli displaying novel associations across identities or locations recruit putatively scene-selective regions of the human brain (the parahippocampal/lingual region, the retrosplenial complex, and the transverse occipital sulcus/occipital place area). Moreover, we find that the voxel-wise neural patterns arising from these associations are significantly correlated with the neural patterns arising from everyday scenes providing critical evidence whether the same encoding principals underlie both types of processing. These neuroimaging results provide evidence for the hypothesis that the neural representation of scenes is better understood within the broader theoretical framework of associative processing. In addition, the results demonstrate a division of labor that arises across scene-selective regions when processing associations and scenes providing better understanding of the functional roles of each region within the cortical network that mediates scene processing.

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Shared cognitive mechanisms involved in the processing of scene texture and scene shape.

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