A Real-World Size Organization of Object Responses in Occipito-Temporal Cortex

Konkle & Oliva


SUMMARY:

While there are selective regions of occipito-temporal cortex that respond to faces, letters, and bodies, the large-scale neural organization of most object categories remains unknown. Here we find that object representations can be differentiated along the ventral temporal cortex by their real-world size. In a functional neuroimaging experiment, observers were shown pictures of big and small real-world objects (e.g. table, bathtub; paperclip, cup), presented at the same retinal size. We observed a consistent medial-to-lateral organization of big and small object preferences in the ventral temporal cortex, mirrored along the lateral surface. Regions in the lateral-occipital, infero-temporal, and parahippocampal cortices showed strong peaks of differential real-world size selectivity, and maintained these preferences over changes in retinal size and in mental imagery. These data demonstrate that the real-world size of objects can provide insight into the spatial topography of object representation.


HIGHLIGHTS:

- Large-scale organization of big and small object responses across the cortex

- New functional regions show robust response differences between big and small objects

- Regions are tolerant to retinal size changes and activate during mental imagery

- We propose real-world size is an organizing dimension of object representation

Konkle, T., & Oliva, (in press) A Real-World Size Organization of Object Responses in Occipito-Temporal Cortex. Neuron .