Distributed and Overlapping Representations of Faces and Objects in Ventral Temporal Cortex
James V. Haxby,1*
M. Ida Gobbini,12
Maura L. Furey,12
Alumit Ishai,1
Jennifer L. Schouten,1
Pietro Pietrini3
The functional architecture of the object vision pathway in the
human brain was investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure patterns of response in ventral temporal cortex while subjects viewed faces, cats, five categories of man-made objects,
and nonsense pictures. A distinct pattern of response was found for
each stimulus category. The distinctiveness of the response to a given
category was not due simply to the regions that responded maximally to
that category, because the category being viewed also could be
identified on the basis of the pattern of response when those regions
were excluded from the analysis. Patterns of response that
discriminated among all categories were found even within cortical
regions that responded maximally to only one category. These results
indicate that the representations of faces and objects in ventral
temporal cortex are widely distributed and overlapping.
1 Laboratory of Brain and Cognition, National
Institute of Mental Health, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD
20892, USA.
2 Department of Human and Environmental
Sciences and
3 Laboratory of Clinical Biochemistry,
Department of Experimental Pathology, University of Pisa, I-56126 Pisa,
Italy.
*
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail:
haxby{at}nih.gov
