Object shape and surface properties are jointly encoded in mid-level ventral visual cortex. (October 2019)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Pasupathy, Anitha; Kim, Taekjun; Popovkina, Dina V
• Is Part Of: Current opinion in neurobiology. Volume 58(2019)
• Page Start: 199
• Page End: 208
• Publication Date: 2019-10
• Subjects: Neurobiology -- Periodicals; 573.8
• DOI: 10.1016/j.conb.2019.09.009
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0959-4388

Abstract

Highlights: Boundary or texture-based strategies alone cannot support visual object recognition. Neurons in area V4 jointly encode a shape boundary and the associated surface. Ventral stream processing models capture some aspects of neuronal representation of shape and texture. There is a need to consider joint coding more explicitly. Abstract : Recognizing a myriad visual objects rapidly is a hallmark of the primate visual system. Traditional theories of object recognition have focused on how crucial form features, for example, the orientation of edges, may be extracted in early visual cortex and utilized to recognize objects. An alternative view argues that much of early and mid-level visual processing focuses on encoding surface characteristics, for example, texture. Neurophysiological evidence from primate area V4 supports a third alternative — the joint, but independent, encoding of form and texture — that would be advantageous for segmenting objects from the background in natural scenes and for object recognition that is independent of surface texture. Future studies that leverage deep convolutional network models, especially focusing on network failures to match biology and behavior, can advance our insights into how such a joint representation of form and surface properties might emerge in visual cortex.