Epstein Russell A, Higgins J Stephen
Department of Psychology and Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, University of Pennsylvania, PA 19104-6241, USA.
Cereb Cortex. 2007 Jul;17(7):1680-93. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhl079. Epub 2006 Sep 22.
Human observers can quickly and accurately interpret the meaning of complex visual scenes. The neural mechanisms underlying this ability are largely unexplored. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure cortical activity while subjects identified briefly presented scenes as specific familiar locations ("Houston Hall"), general place categories ("kitchen"), or general situational categories ("party"). Scene-responsive voxels in the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and retrosplenial cortex (RSC) were highly sensitive to recognition level when identifying scenes, responding more strongly during location identification than during place category or situation identification. In contrast, the superior temporal sulcus, cingulate sulcus, and supermarginal gyrus displayed the opposite pattern, responding more strongly during place category and situation identification. Consideration of results from 4 experiments suggests that the PPA represents the visuospatial structure of individual scenes, whereas RSC supports processes that allow scenes to be localized within a larger extended environment. These results suggest that different scene identification tasks tap distinct cortical networks. In particular, we hypothesize that the PPA and RSC are critically involved in the identification of specific locations but play a less central role in other scene recognition tasks.
人类观察者能够快速准确地解读复杂视觉场景的含义。这种能力背后的神经机制在很大程度上尚未得到探索。我们使用功能磁共振成像来测量皮质活动，同时让受试者将短暂呈现的场景识别为特定的熟悉地点（“休斯顿大厅”）、一般地点类别（“厨房”）或一般情境类别（“派对”）。海马旁回区域（PPA）和压后皮质（RSC）中的场景反应性体素在识别场景时对识别水平高度敏感，在位置识别过程中的反应比在地点类别或情境识别过程中更强烈。相比之下，颞上沟、扣带沟和缘上回则呈现出相反的模式，在地点类别和情境识别过程中的反应更强烈。对4个实验结果的考量表明，PPA代表单个场景的视觉空间结构，而RSC支持使场景能够在更大的扩展环境中定位的过程。这些结果表明，不同的场景识别任务利用了不同的皮质网络。特别是，我们假设PPA和RSC在特定位置的识别中起着关键作用，但在其他场景识别任务中所起的核心作用较小。
