A preference for contralateral stimuli in human object- and face-selective cortex

Visual input from the left and right visual fields is processed predominantly in the contralateral hemisphere. Here we investigated whether this preference for contralateral over ipsilateral stimuli is also found in high-level visual areas that are important for the recognition of objects and faces....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:PloS one 2007-06, Vol.2 (6), p.e574-e574
Main Authors: Hemond, Christopher C, Kanwisher, Nancy G, Op de Beeck, Hans P
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Action Potentials - physiology
Adaptation
Attention
Brain research
Cerebral Cortex - physiology
Face
Female
Functional magnetic resonance imaging
Humans
Image Processing, Computer-Assisted
Levels
Magnetic resonance
Magnetic Resonance Imaging
Male
Medical imaging
Neuroimaging
Neuroscience/Cognitive Neuroscience
Object recognition
Pattern Recognition, Visual
Photic Stimulation
Preferences
Time series
Tomography
Trends
Visual cortex
Visual Cortex - physiology
Visual field
Visual fields
Visual perception
Visual stimuli
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Summary:Visual input from the left and right visual fields is processed predominantly in the contralateral hemisphere. Here we investigated whether this preference for contralateral over ipsilateral stimuli is also found in high-level visual areas that are important for the recognition of objects and faces. Human subjects were scanned with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) while they viewed and attended faces, objects, scenes, and scrambled images in the left or right visual field. With our stimulation protocol, primary visual cortex responded only to contralateral stimuli. The contralateral preference was smaller in object- and face-selective regions, and it was smallest in the fusiform gyrus. Nevertheless, each region showed a significant preference for contralateral stimuli. These results indicate that sensitivity to stimulus position is present even in high-level ventral visual cortex.
ISSN:1932-6203
1932-6203
DOI:10.1371/journal.pone.0000574