The neural basis ofObject and face recognition

Ventral pathway receptive field properties 0

2

TE receptive fieldV4 receptive field V1 receptive field

Responses of IT neurons to various stimuli

Fir

ing

rate

Stimulus

Neural Coding

The question of specificity:Is a face cell truly a “face specific”

#1

#10 #100

Face selectivity in single units human MTL(Jennifer Aniston cell)

Face selectivity in single units human MTL

Face neuron clusters in IT

Responses of IT (TE)

neurons

Tanaka’s stimulus reduction method

Tanaka et al, 1991

Tanaka Features

Columns in IT

Optical imaging in IT cortex

Columns in IT (seen with optical imaging)

Columns in IT

Microstimulation of face populations in IT

Cortical Microstimulation biases perceptual decisions

fMRIfMRI

The human visual pathways

Malach et al., PNAS 1995

Object-Selective Regions in the Human BrainLateral Occipital Complex: LOC

10-4

10-4

10-10

10-4

10-10

right hemisphere

lateral view

ventral view

left hemisphere

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Grill-Spector et al. , Neuron 1998

Objects from motion

Objects from texture

Objects from luminance

Cue-independent representations

Left hemisphere

lateral

Are Faces Special?Are Faces Special?Having a dedicated Having a dedicated

representationrepresentation

Face-related activation

Whole vs. Parts

12V41664256 2h

Whole vs. Parts

Face blindness (Prosopagnosia)

Is face blindness associated witha disfunctional FFA

NO!

But it may depend on the integrity of the face network

(its connections with other areas)

Functional organization of the human ventral areas

Hasson et al., 2003

Distributed & overlapping representation of

faces & objects in ventral temporal cortex

Haxby et al., 2001

Mapping the similarity between visual categories

Kriegskorte et al., 2008

A division between animate and inanimate objects

Mapping is similar in humans and monkeys