title: Object Domain and Modality in the Ventral Visual Pathway.
abstract: The nature of domain-specific organization in higher-order visual cortex (ventral occipital temporal cortex, VOTC) has been investigated both in the case of visual experience deprivation and of modality of stimulation in sighted individuals. Object domain interacts in an intriguing and revelatory way with visual experience and modality of stimulation: selectivity for artifacts and scene domains is largely immune to visual deprivation and is multi-modal, whereas selectivity for animate items in lateral posterior fusiform gyrus is present only with visual stimulation. This domain-by-modality interaction is not readily accommodated by existing theories of VOTC representation. We conjecture that these effects reflect a distinction between the visual features that characterize different object domains and their interaction with different types of downstream computational systems.
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China. Electronic address: ybi@bnu.edu.cn.
authors.forename: Yanchao
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Bi
authors.affiliation: State Key Laboratory of Cognitive Neuroscience and Learning, and IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Beijing Normal University, Beijing, 100875, China.
authors.forename: Xiaoying
authors.initials: X
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA; Center for Mind/Brain Sciences, University of Trento, Rovereto TN, Italy.
authors.forename: Alfonso
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Caramazza
mesh_terms: D001931:Brain Mapping; D006801:Humans; D010364:Pattern Recognition, Visual / Q000502:physiology*; D010775:Photic Stimulation; D012683:Sensory Deprivation / Q000502:physiology; D014793:Visual Cortex / Q000502:physiology*; D014795:Visual Pathways / Q000502:physiology*