Wright State University, Dayton, OH.
Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD.
J Cogn Neurosci. 2022 Feb 1;34(3):397-410. doi: 10.1162/jocn_a_01810.
Scene perception and spatial navigation are interdependent cognitive functions, and there is increasing evidence that cortical areas that process perceptual scene properties also carry information about the potential for navigation in the environment (navigational affordances). However, the temporal stages by which visual information is transformed into navigationally relevant information are not yet known. We hypothesized that navigational affordances are encoded during perceptual processing and therefore should modulate early visually evoked ERPs, especially the scene-selective P2 component. To test this idea, we recorded ERPs from participants while they passively viewed computer-generated room scenes matched in visual complexity. By simply changing the number of doors (0 doors, 1 door, 2 doors, 3 doors), we were able to systematically vary the number of pathways that afford movement in the local environment, while keeping the overall size and shape of the environment constant. We found that rooms with 0 doors evoked a higher P2 response than rooms with three doors, consistent with prior research reporting higher P2 amplitude to closed relative to open scenes. Moreover, we found P2 amplitude scaled linearly with the number of doors in the scenes. Navigability effects on the ERP waveform were also observed in a multivariate analysis, which showed significant decoding of the number of doors and their location at earlier time windows. Together, our results suggest that navigational affordances are represented in the early stages of scene perception. This complements research showing that the occipital place area automatically encodes the structure of navigable space and strengthens the link between scene perception and navigation.
场景感知和空间导航是相互依存的认知功能，越来越多的证据表明，处理感知场景属性的皮质区域也携带有关环境中导航潜力的信息（导航可供性）。然而，将视觉信息转化为与导航相关的信息的时间阶段尚不清楚。我们假设导航可供性在感知处理过程中被编码，因此应该调节早期的视觉诱发 ERP，特别是场景选择性 P2 成分。为了验证这一观点，我们在参与者被动观看与视觉复杂度相匹配的计算机生成的房间场景时记录了他们的 ERP。通过简单地改变门的数量（0 扇门、1 扇门、2 扇门、3 扇门），我们能够系统地改变局部环境中运动的途径数量，同时保持环境的整体大小和形状不变。我们发现，有 0 扇门的房间比有 3 扇门的房间引起的 P2 反应更高，这与先前的研究报告一致，即封闭场景的 P2 振幅高于开放场景。此外，我们发现 P2 振幅与场景中的门数量呈线性比例。ERP 波形上的可导航性效应也在多元分析中得到了观察，该分析显示了对门数量及其位置的早期时间窗口的显著解码。总之，我们的结果表明，导航可供性在场景感知的早期阶段得到表示。这补充了研究表明，枕部位置区域自动编码可导航空间的结构，并加强了场景感知和导航之间的联系。
