On the relationship between maps and domains in inferotemporal cortex.

ABSTRACT: How does the brain encode information about the environment? Decades of research have led to the pervasive notion that the object-processing pathway in primate cortex consists of multiple areas that are each specialized to process different object categories (such as faces, bodies, hands, non-face objects and scenes). The anatomical consistency and modularity of these regions have been interpreted as evidence that these regions are innately specialized. Here, we propose that ventral-stream modules do not represent clusters of circuits that each evolved to process some specific object category particularly important for survival, but instead reflect the effects of experience on a domain-general architecture that evolved to be able to adapt, within a lifetime, to its particular environment.

SUBMITTER: Arcaro MJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8865285 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature