Separate channels for processing form, texture, and color: evidence from FMRI adaptation and visual object agnosia.

Previous neuroimaging research suggests that although object shape is analyzed in the lateral occipital cortex, surface properties of objects, such as color and texture, are dealt with in more medial areas, close to the collateral sulcus (CoS). The present study sought to determine whether there is a single medial region concerned with surface properties in general or whether instead there are multiple foci independently extracting different surface properties. We used stimuli varying in their shape, texture, or color, and tested healthy participants and 2 object-agnosic patients, in both a discrimination task and a functional MR adaptation paradigm. We found a double dissociation between medial and lateral occipitotemporal cortices in processing surface (texture or color) versus geometric (shape) properties, respectively. In Experiment 2, we found that the medial occipitotemporal cortex houses separate foci for color (within anterior CoS and lingual gyrus) and texture (caudally within posterior CoS). In addition, we found that areas selective for shape, texture, and color individually were quite distinct from those that respond to all of these features together (shape and texture and color). These latter areas appear to correspond to those associated with the perception of complex stimuli such as faces and places.

Separate processing of texture and form in the ventral stream: evidence from FMRI and visual agnosia.

Real-life visual object recognition requires the processing of more than just geometric (shape, size, and orientation) properties. Surface properties such as color and texture are equally important, particularly for providing information about the material properties of objects. Recent neuroimaging research suggests that geometric and surface properties are dealt with separately within the lateral occipital cortex (LOC) and the collateral sulcus (CoS), respectively. Here we compared objects that differed either in aspect ratio or in surface texture only, keeping all other visual properties constant. Results on brain-intact participants confirmed that surface texture activates an area in the posterior CoS, quite distinct from the area activated by shape within LOC. We also tested 2 patients with visual object agnosia, one of whom (DF) performed well on the texture task but at chance on the shape task, whereas the other (MS) showed the converse pattern. This behavioral double dissociation was matched by a parallel neuroimaging dissociation, with activation in CoS but not LOC in patient DF and activation in LOC but not CoS in patient MS. These data provide presumptive evidence that the areas respectively activated by shape and texture play a causally necessary role in the perceptual discrimination of these features.

Redundancy gain in the stop-signal paradigm: implications for the locus of coactivation in simple reaction time.

The authors carried out 2 experiments designed to cast light on the locus of redundancy gain in simple visual reaction time by using a stop-signal paradigm. In Experiment 1, the authors found that single visual stimuli were more easily inhibited than double visual stimuli by an acoustic stop signal. This result is in keeping with the idea that redundancy gain occurs prior to the ballistic stage of the stop-signal task. In Experiment 2, the authors found that the response to an acoustic go signal was more easily inhibited by a double than by a single visual stop signal. This result provides conclusive evidence for a redundancy gain in the stop process--in a process that does not involve a motor response but rather its inhibition.

What does the brain do when you fake it? An FMRI study of pantomimed and real grasping.

Given that studying neural bases of actions is very challenging with fMRI, numerous experiments have used pantomimed actions as a proxy to studying neural circuits of real actions. However, the underlying assumption that the same neural mechanisms mediate real and pantomimed actions has never been directly tested. Moreover, the assumption is called into question by neuropsychological evidence suggesting that real actions depend on the dorsal stream of visual processing whereas pretend actions also recruit the ventral stream. Here, we directly tested these ideas in neurologically intact subjects. Ten right-handed participants performed four tasks: 1) grasping real three-dimensional objects, 2) reaching toward the objects and touching them with the knuckle without hand preshaping, 3) pantomimed grasping in an adjacent location where no object was present, and 4) pantomimed reaching toward an adjacent location. As expected, in the anterior intraparietal area, there was significantly higher activation during real grasping than that during real reaching. However, the activation difference between pantomimed grasping and pantomimed reaching did not reach statistical significance. There was also no effect of pantomimed grasping within the ventral stream, including an object-selective area in the lateral occipital cortex. Instead, we found that pantomimed grasping was mediated by right-hemisphere activation, particularly the right parietal cortex. These results suggest that areas typically invoked by real actions may not necessarily be driven by "fake" actions. Moreover, pantomimed grasping may not tap object-related areas within the ventral stream, but rather may rely on mechanisms within the right hemisphere that are recruited by artificial and less practiced actions.

At what stage of manual visual reaction time does interhemispheric transmission occur: controlled or ballistic?

Interhemispheric transfer (IT) time through the corpus callosum can be measured with a manual reaction time (RT) to lateralized visual stimuli (the so-called Poffenberger paradigm) by subtracting mean RT of faster uncrossed hemifield-hand combinations (not requiring an IT) from slower crossed combinations (requiring an IT). That the corpus callosum is involved in IT has been demonstrated by its dramatic lengthening in patients with a section of the corpus callosum. However, it is still unclear whether the signal transmitted by the corpus callosum concerns perceptual or motor stages of RT. To try and cast light on this question, in a first experiment we tested normal subjects on a partially modified Poffenberger paradigm with stop trials intermingled with go trials. In the former, subjects are supposed to refrain from responding following a stop signal (stop-signal paradigm). This paradigm can tease apart the contribution of the controlled and ballistic stages to overall RT and, used together with the Poffenberger task, enables one to assess the stage at which IT occurs. The controlled stage lies before the point of no return, i.e. the point beyond which the response cannot be inhibited, and concerns perceptual and pre-motor processes, while the ballistic stage occurs after the point of no return and concerns the motoric aspect of the response. We found that the slower responses typically obtained in the crossed conditions were more likely to be inhibited than the faster uncrossed responses and this suggests that IT occurs prior to the point of no return. Since the precise locus of the point of no return is uncertain, in a second experiment we used response force as a dependent variable reflecting the activation of the motor cortex. We found that none of the force parameters studied differed between crossed and uncrossed conditions while the temporal parameters confirmed the presence of an advantage of the uncrossed combinations. Altogether these results suggest that callosal IT of visuomotor information occurs at the stage of controlled (perceptual and pre-motor) processes and rule out the possibility of an IT at the motoric stage.