Concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenes
Despite over two decades of research on the neural mechanisms underlying human visual scene, or place, processing, it remains unknown what exactly a “scene” is. Intuitively, we are always inside a scene, while interacting with the outside of objects. Hence, we hypothesize that one diagnostic feature...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Elsevier
2021-05-01
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| Series: | NeuroImage |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192100197X |
| _version_ | 1818437913311969280 |
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| author | Annie Cheng Dirk B. Walther Soojin Park Daniel D. Dilks |
| author_facet | Annie Cheng Dirk B. Walther Soojin Park Daniel D. Dilks |
| author_sort | Annie Cheng |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Despite over two decades of research on the neural mechanisms underlying human visual scene, or place, processing, it remains unknown what exactly a “scene” is. Intuitively, we are always inside a scene, while interacting with the outside of objects. Hence, we hypothesize that one diagnostic feature of a scene may be concavity, portraying “inside”, and predict that if concavity is a scene-diagnostic feature, then: 1) images that depict concavity, even non-scene images (e.g., the “inside” of an object – or concave object), will be behaviorally categorized as scenes more often than those that depict convexity, and 2) the cortical scene-processing system will respond more to concave images than to convex images. As predicted, participants categorized concave objects as scenes more often than convex objects, and, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), two scene-selective cortical regions (the parahippocampal place area, PPA, and the occipital place area, OPA) responded significantly more to concave than convex objects. Surprisingly, we found no behavioral or neural differences between images of concave versus convex buildings. However, in a follow-up experiment, using tightly-controlled images, we unmasked a selective sensitivity to concavity over convexity of scene boundaries (i.e., walls) in PPA and OPA. Furthermore, we found that even highly impoverished line drawings of concave shapes are behaviorally categorized as scenes more often than convex shapes. Together, these results provide converging behavioral and neural evidence that concavity is a diagnostic feature of visual scenes. |
| first_indexed | 2024-12-14T17:32:13Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-017c8bd58c0b4d98ba6e1741800767f4 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 1095-9572 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-12-14T17:32:13Z |
| publishDate | 2021-05-01 |
| publisher | Elsevier |
| record_format | Article |
| series | NeuroImage |
| spelling | doaj.art-017c8bd58c0b4d98ba6e1741800767f42022-12-21T22:53:05ZengElsevierNeuroImage1095-95722021-05-01232117920Concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenesAnnie Cheng0Dirk B. Walther1Soojin Park2Daniel D. Dilks3Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USADepartment of Psychology, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, CanadaDepartment of Psychology, Yonsei University, Seoul, Republic of Korea; Corresponding authors.Department of Psychology, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA; Corresponding authors.Despite over two decades of research on the neural mechanisms underlying human visual scene, or place, processing, it remains unknown what exactly a “scene” is. Intuitively, we are always inside a scene, while interacting with the outside of objects. Hence, we hypothesize that one diagnostic feature of a scene may be concavity, portraying “inside”, and predict that if concavity is a scene-diagnostic feature, then: 1) images that depict concavity, even non-scene images (e.g., the “inside” of an object – or concave object), will be behaviorally categorized as scenes more often than those that depict convexity, and 2) the cortical scene-processing system will respond more to concave images than to convex images. As predicted, participants categorized concave objects as scenes more often than convex objects, and, using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), two scene-selective cortical regions (the parahippocampal place area, PPA, and the occipital place area, OPA) responded significantly more to concave than convex objects. Surprisingly, we found no behavioral or neural differences between images of concave versus convex buildings. However, in a follow-up experiment, using tightly-controlled images, we unmasked a selective sensitivity to concavity over convexity of scene boundaries (i.e., walls) in PPA and OPA. Furthermore, we found that even highly impoverished line drawings of concave shapes are behaviorally categorized as scenes more often than convex shapes. Together, these results provide converging behavioral and neural evidence that concavity is a diagnostic feature of visual scenes.http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192100197XParahippocampal place areaOccipital place areaScene perceptionScene selectivityHigh-level visionLateral occipital complex |
| spellingShingle | Annie Cheng Dirk B. Walther Soojin Park Daniel D. Dilks Concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenes NeuroImage Parahippocampal place area Occipital place area Scene perception Scene selectivity High-level vision Lateral occipital complex |
| title | Concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenes |
| title_full | Concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenes |
| title_fullStr | Concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenes |
| title_full_unstemmed | Concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenes |
| title_short | Concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenes |
| title_sort | concavity as a diagnostic feature of visual scenes |
| topic | Parahippocampal place area Occipital place area Scene perception Scene selectivity High-level vision Lateral occipital complex |
| url | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S105381192100197X |
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