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9.71

Functional MRI of High-Level Vision

Undergraduate · Historical course

Fall 2007

We are now at an unprecedented point in the field of neuroscience: We can watch the human brain in action as it sees, thinks, decides, reads, and remembers. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) is the only method that enables us to monitor local neural activity in the normal human brain in a noninvasive fashion and with good spatial resolution. A large number of far-reaching and fundamental questions about the human mind and brain can now be answered using straightforward applications of this technology. This is particularly true in the area of high-level vision, the study of how we interpret and use visual information including object recognition, mental imagery, visual attention, perceptual awareness, visually guided action, and visual memory. The goals of this course are to help students become savvy and critical readers of the current neuroimaging literature, to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the technique, and to design their own cutting-edge, theoretically motivated studies. Students will read, present to the class, and critique recently published neuroimaging articles, as well as write detailed proposals for experiments of their own. Lectures will cover the theoretical background on some of the major areas in high-level vision, as well as an overview of what fMRI has taught us and can in future teach us about each of these topics. Lectures and discussions will also cover fMRI methods and experimental design. A prior course in statistics and at least one course in perception or cognition are required.

Readings

  • Huettel, Scott A., Allen W. Song, and Gregory McCarthy. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging . Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 2004. ISBN: 9780878932887.
    Listed reading
  • Buy at MIT Press Farah, Martha J. Visual Agnosia . 2nd ed. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780262062381. ↗
    Listed reading
  • ———. The Cognitive Neuroscience of Vision . Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishers, 2000. ISBN: 9780631214038.
    Listed reading
  • WEEK #: 1 · TOPICS: Introduction to fMRI and high-level vision · READINGS: Huettel. Chapters 1 (Chapter 2 = optional), 2004.
    Reading assignment
  • Kanwisher, N. “What’s in a Face?” Science 311, no. 5761 (2006): 617-8.
    Required
  • Grill-Spector, K., and R. Malach. “The Human Visual Cortex.” Annu Rev Neurosci 27 (2004): 649-77.
    Required
  • Buy at MIT Press Kanwisher, N. “The Ventral Visual Object Pathway in Humans: Evidence from fMRI.” In The Visual Neurosciences . Edited by Leo M. Chalupa and John S. Werner. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780262033084. ↗
    Required
  • Talbot, Margaret. “ Duped .” New Yorker , July 2007. ↗
    Required
  • Buy at MIT Press Culham, J. C. “Functional Neuroimaging: Experimental Design and Analysis.” In Handbook of Functional Neuroimaging of Cognition Book . Edited by R. Cabeza and A. Kingstone. Cambridge MA: MIT Press, 2001, pp. 53-82. ISBN: 9780262032803. ↗
    Recommended
  • Haxby, J. V., M. I. Gobbini, M. L. Furey, A. Ishai, J. L. Schouten, and P. Pietrini. “Distributed and Overlapping Representations of Faces and Objects in Ventral Temporal Cortex.” Science , no. 5539 (September 28, 2001): 293 and 2425.
    Recommended
  • Pietrini, P., M. L. Furey, E. Ricciardi, M. I. Gobbini, W. H. Wu, L. Cohen, M. Guazzelli, and J. V. Haxby. “Beyond Sensory Images: Object-based Representation in the Human Ventral Pathway.” Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 101, no. 15 (April 13, 2004): 5658-63.
    Recommended
  • Reddy, L., and N. Kanwisher. “Coding of Visual Objects in the Ventral Stream.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 16, no. 4 (2006): 408-414.
    Recommended
  • Urgesi, C., M. Candidi, S. Ionta, and S. M. Aglioti. “Representation of Body Identity and Body Actions in Extrastriate Body Area and Ventral Premotor Cortex.” Nat Neurosci . 10, no. 1 (2007): 30-1.
    Recommended
  • Ullman, S. “Approaches to Visual Recognition.” In Functional Neuroimaging of Visual Cognition . Edited by Nancy Kanwisher and John Duncan. Oxford; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780198528456.
    Required
  • Grill-Spector, K., Z. Kourtzi, and N. Kanwisher. “The Lateral Occipital Complex and its Role in Object Recognition.” Vis Res 41 (2001): 1409-22.
    Required
  • McKyton, A., and E. Zohary. “Beyond Retinotopic Mapping: The Spatial Representation of Objects in the Human Lateral Occipital Complex.” Cereb Cortex 17, no. 5 (2007): 1164-1172.
    Recommended
  • Hayworth, K. J., and I. Biederman. “Neural Evidence for Intermediate Representations in Object Recognition.” Vision Res 46, no. 23 (2006): 4024-31.
    Recommended
  • Vuilleumier, P., R. N. Henson, J. Driver, and R. J. Dolan. “Multiple Levels of Visual Object Constancy Revealed by Event-related fMRI of Repetition Priming.” Nat Neurosci 5, no. 5 (May 2002): 491-9.
    Recommended
  • Amedi, A., G. Jacobson, T. Hendler, R. Malach, and E. Zohary. “Convergence of Visual and Tactile Shape Processing in the Human Lateral Occipital Complex.” Cereb Cortex 12, no. 11 (November 2002): 1202-12.
    Recommended
  • Valyear, K. F., J. C. Culham, N. Sharif, D. Westwood, and M. A. Goodale. “A Double Dissociation Between Sensitivity to Changes in Object Identity and Object Orientation in the Ventral and Dorsal Visual Streams: A Human fMRI Study.” Neuropsychologia 44, no. 2 (2006): 218-228.
    Recommended
  • Epstein, R. A. “The Cortical Basis of Visual Scene Processing.” Visual Cognition 12, no. 6 (2005).
    Required
  • Oliva, A., and A. Torralba. “Building the Gist of a Scene: The Role of Global Image Features in Recognition.” Progress in Brain Research: Visual Perception 155 (2006): 23-36.
    Required
  • Any article in Volume 12 Issue 6 of Visual Cognition .
    Required
  • Bar, M. “Visual Object in Context.” Nature Neuroscience Review (2004): 617-628.
    Required
  • Kanwisher, N., and G. Yovel. “The Fusiform Face Area: A Cortical Region Specialized for the Perception of Faces.” Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B 361 (2006): 2109-28.
    Required
  • McKone, E., N. Kanwisher, and B. C. Duchaine. “Can Generic Expertise Explain Special Processing for Faces?” Trends Cogn Sci 11 (2007): 8-15.
    Required
  • Farah, Martha J. Chapter 7 in Visual Agnosia . 2nd ed. 2004.
    Required
  • Tanaka, J. W., E. McKone, P. Martini, and K. Nakayama. “Isolating Holistic Processing in Faces (And Perhaps Objects).” Chapter 4 in Perception of Faces, Objects, and Scenes: Analytic and Holistic Processes . Edited by Mary A. Peterson and Gillian Rhodes. Oxford; New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2003. ISBN: 9780195165388.
    Required
  • Spellman, B. A., J. DeLoache, and R. A. Bjork. “Making Claims in Papers and Talks.” In Critical Thinking in Psychology . Edited by R. J. Sternberg, H. L. Roediger III, and D. F. Halpern. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press, 2006. ISBN: 9780521608343.
    Recommended
  • Tsao, D. Y., W. A. Freiwald, R. B. Tootell, and M. S. Livingstone. “A Cortical Region Consisting Entirely of Face-Selective Cells.” Science 311, no. 5761 (2006): 670-4.
    Recommended
  • Grelotti, K., S. Gauthier, G. Cohen, and S. Volkmar. “fMRI Activation of the Fusiform Gyrus and Amygdala to Cartoon Characters but not to Faces in a Boy with Autism.” Neuropsychologia 43, no. 3 (2005): 373-85.
    Recommended
  • Buy at MIT Press Freiwald, W. A., and N. Kanwisher. “Visual Selective Attention: insights from Brain Imaging and Neurophysiology.” In The Cognitive Neurosciences III . Edited by Michael S. Gazzaniga. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2004. ISBN: 9780262072540. ↗
    Required
  • Behrmann, M., J. J. Geng, and S. Shomstein. “Parietal Cortex and Attention.” Curr Opin Neurobiol 14, no. 2 (April 2004): 212-7.
    Required
  • Rees, G. “Neural Correlates of the Contents of Visual Awareness in Humans.” Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci 362, no. 1481 (May 2007): 877-86.
    Required
  • Kanwisher, N. “Neural Events and Perceptual Awareness.” Cognition 79 (2001): 89-113.
    Required
  • Sergent, C., and S. Dehaene. “Neural Processes Underlying Conscious Perception: Experimental Findings and a Global Neuronal Workspace Framework.” J Physiol Paris 98, nos. 4-6 (2004): 374-84.
    Required
  • Baars, Bernard J. “The Conscious Access Hypothesis: Origins and Recent Evidence.” Trends Cogn Sci 6 (2002): 47-52.
    Recommended
  • Culham, J. C., and K. F. Valyear. “Human Parietal Cortex in Action.” Current Opinion in Neurobiology 6 (2006): 205 - 212.
    Required
  • Culham, J. C., C. Cavina-Pratesi, and A. Singhal. “The Role of Parietal Cortex in Visuomotor Control: What have we Learned From Neuroimaging?” Neuropsychologia 44 (2006): 2668-2684.
    Recommended
  • Grefkes, C., and G. R. Fink. “The Functional Organization of the Intraparietal Sulcus in Humans and Monkeys.” J Anat 207, no. 1 (2005): 3-17.
    Recommended
  • Norman, K. A., S. M. Polyn, G. J. Detre, and J. V Haxby. “Beyond Mind-Reading: Multi-voxel Pattern Analysis of fMRI Data.” Trends Cogn Sci 10, no. 9 (2006): 424-430.
    Recommended
  • Williams, M., S. Dang, and N. Kanwisher. “Only Some Spatial Patterns of fMRI Response are Read Out in Task Performance.” Nat Neurosci 10, no. 6 (2007): 685-6.
    Recommended
  • Haynes, J. D., and G. Rees. “Predicting the Stream of Consciousness from Activity in Human Visual Cortex.” Curr Biol 15, no. 14 (July 2005): 1301-7.
    Recommended
  • Kamitani, Y., and F. Tong. “Decoding Seen and Attended Motion Directions from Activity in the Human Visual Cortex.” Curr Biol 16, no. 11 (2006): 1096-102.
    Recommended
  • Kourtzi, Z., and J. J. DiCarlo. “Learning and Neural Plasticity in Visual Object Recognition.” Curr Opin Neurobiol 16, no. 2 (2006): 152-8.
    Required
  • Golarai, G., D. G. Ghahremani, S. Whitfield-Gabrieli, A. Reiss, J. L. Eberhardt, J. D. Gabrieli, and K. Grill-Spector. “Differential Development of High-level Visual Cortex Correlates with Category-Specific Recognition Memory.” Nat Neurosci 10, no. 4 (2007): 512-22.
    Recommended
  • Gaillard, R., L. Naccache, P. Pinel, S. Clemenceau, E. Volle, D. Hasboun, S. Dupont, M. Baulac, S. Dehaene, C. Adam, and L. Cohen. “Direct Intracranial, fMRI, and Lesion Evidence for the Causal Role of Left Inferotemporal Cortex in Reading.” Neuron 50, no. 2 (2006): 191-204.
    Recommended
  • Weisberg, J., M. Van Turennout, and A. Martin. “A Neural System for Learning about Object Function.” Cereb Cortex 17, no. 3 (2006): 513-521.
    Recommended
  • Baker, C. I., E. Peli, N. Knouf, and N. G. Kanwisher. “Reorganization of Visual Processing in Macular Degeneration.” J Neurosci 25, no. 3 (2005): 614-8.
    Recommended
  • Baker, C. I., J. Liu, L. L. Wald, K. K. Kwong, T. Benner, and N. G. Kanwisher N. “Visual Word Processing and Experiential Origins of Functional Selectivity in Human Extrastriate Cortex.” Proc Natl Acad Sci 104, no. 21 (2007): 9087-92.
    Recommended
  • Op de Beeck, H. P., C. I. Baker, J. J. DiCarlo, and N. G. Kanwisher. “Discrimination Training Alters Object Representations in Human Extrastriate Cortex.” J Neurosci 26, no. 50 (2006): 13025-36.
    Recommended
  • Huettel, Scott A., Allen W. Song, and Gregory McCarthy. Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging . 1st ed. Sunderland, MA: Sinauer Associates, 2004. ISBN: 9780878932887.
    Required
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