The Lateral Occipital Complex (LOC) is a large region of the human occipital and temporal lobes that has been consistently implicated in a variety of object recognition processes. It has been suggested that the LOC consists of more than one functional region, but few studies have focused on this issue. In particular, it is not known whether the LOC contains regions that process multi-modal object information. We hypothesize that the LOC consists of (at least) two functional units; the posterior (occipital) parts are involved in purely visual processing and the anterior (temporal) parts are involved in multi-modal integration of object knowledge. We will use functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) to examine systematically the relationship between specific functional sub-processes of object recognition and loci of activation in the LOC. Specifically, we propose: 1) To study whether there is a relation between the -visual complexity- of a stimulus and the extent to which it activates anterior versus posterior portions of LOC. 2) To study whether increased -object familiarity- (as a result of increased exposure or knowledge of object context) will result in an expansion of activation from posterior regions of LO into anterior regions.
| Stanley, Damian A; Rubin, Nava (2005) Rapid detection of salient regions: evidence from apparent motion. J Vis 5:690-701 |
