Combinatorial codes in ventral temporal lobe for object recognition: Haxby (2001) revisited: is there a “face” area?

Description: OpenfMRI ds000105 Distributed and overlapping representations of faces and objects in ventral temporal cortex. Combinatorial codes in ventral temporal lobe for object recognition: Haxby (2001). revisited: is there a “face” area? Partially distributed representations of objects and faces in ventral temporal cortex Neural responses, as reflected in hemodynamic changes, were measured in six subjects (five female and one male) with gradient echo echoplanar imaging on a GE 3T scanner (General Electric, Milwaukee, WI) [repetition time (TR) = 2500 ms, 40 3.5-mm-thick sagittal images, field of view (FOV) = 24 cm, echo time (TE) = 30 ms, flip angle = 90] while they performed a one-back repetition detection task. High-resolution T1-weighted spoiled gradient recall (SPGR) images were obtained for each subject to provide detailed anatomy (124 1.2-mm-thick sagittal images, FOV = 24 cm). Stimuli were gray-scale images of faces, houses, cats, bottles, scissors, shoes, chairs, and nonsense patterns. The categories were chosen so that all stimuli from a given category would have the same base level name. The specific categories were selected to allow comparison with our previous studies (faces, houses, chairs, animals, and tools) or ongoing studies (shoes and bottles). Control nonsense patterns were phase-scrambled images of the intact objects. Twelve time series were obtained in each subject. Each time series began and ended with 12 s of rest and contained eight stimulus blocks of 24-s duration, one for each category, separated by 12-s intervals of rest. Stimuli were presented for 500 ms with an interstimulus interval of 1500 ms. Repetitions of meaningful stimuli were pictures of the same face or object photographed from different angles. Stimuli for each meaningful category were four images each of 12 different exemplars.

Related article: http://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuroimage.2004.05.020

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