J Neurosci. 2021 Jul 12:JN-RM-2137-20. doi: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2137-20.2021. Online ahead of print.
ABSTRACT
In everyday life, we have no trouble categorizing objects varying in position, size, and orientation. Previous fMRI research shows that higher-level object processing regions in the human lateral occipital cortex may link object responses from different affine states (i.e. size and viewpoint) through a general linear mapping function capable of predicting responses to novel objects. In this study, we extended this approach to examine the mapping for both Euclidean (e.g. position and size) and non-Euclidean (e.g. image statistics and spatial frequency) transformations across the human ventral visual processing hierarchy, including areas V1, V2, V3, V4, ventral occipitotemporal cortex (VOT), and lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOT). The predicted pattern generated from a linear mapping function could capture a significant amount of the changes associated with the transformations throughout the ventral visual stream. The derived linear mapping functions were not category independent, as performance was better for the categories included than those not included in training and better between two similar versus two dissimilar categories in both lower and higher visual regions. Consistent with object representations being stronger in higher than lower visual regions, pattern selectivity and object category representational structure were somewhat better preserved in the predicted patterns in higher than lower visual regions. There were no notable differences between Euclidean and non-Euclidean transformations. These findings demonstrate a near-orthogonal representation of object identity and these non-identity features throughout the human ventral visual processing pathway, with these non-identity features largely untangled from the identity features early in visual processing.Significance StatementPresently we still do not fully understand how object identity and non-identity (e.g. position, size) information are simultaneously represented in the primate ventral visual system to form invariant representations. Previous work suggests that the human lateral occipital cortex may be linking different affine states of object representations through general linear mapping functions. Here we show that across the entire human ventral processing pathway, we could link object responses in different states of non-identity transformations through linear mapping functions for both Euclidean and non-Euclidean transformations. These mapping functions are not identity-independent, suggesting that object identity and non-identity features are represented in a near, rather than a completely, orthogonal manner.
PMID:34253629 | DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2137-20.2021
