TY - JOUR
T1 - Medial Axis Shape Coding in Macaque Inferotemporal Cortex
AU - Hung, Chia Chun
AU - Carlson, Eric T.
AU - Connor, Charles E.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank Zhihong Wang, William Nash, William Quinlan, Lei Hao, and Virginia Weeks for technical assistance. This work was supported by NIH Grant #EY016711 and NSF Grant #0941463.
PY - 2012/6/21
Y1 - 2012/6/21
N2 - The basic, still unanswered question about visual object representation is this: what specific information is encoded by neural signals? Theorists have long predicted that neurons would encode medial axis or skeletal object shape, yet recent studies reveal instead neural coding of boundary or surface shape. Here, we addressed this theoretical/experimental disconnect, using adaptive shape sampling to demonstrate explicit coding of medial axis shape in high-level object cortex (macaque monkey inferotemporal cortex or IT). Our metric shape analyses revealed a coding continuum, along which most neurons represent a configuration of both medial axis and surface components. Thus, IT response functions embody a rich basis set for simultaneously representing skeletal and external shape of complex objects. This would be especially useful for representing biological shapes, which are often characterized by both complex, articulated skeletal structure and specific surface features.
AB - The basic, still unanswered question about visual object representation is this: what specific information is encoded by neural signals? Theorists have long predicted that neurons would encode medial axis or skeletal object shape, yet recent studies reveal instead neural coding of boundary or surface shape. Here, we addressed this theoretical/experimental disconnect, using adaptive shape sampling to demonstrate explicit coding of medial axis shape in high-level object cortex (macaque monkey inferotemporal cortex or IT). Our metric shape analyses revealed a coding continuum, along which most neurons represent a configuration of both medial axis and surface components. Thus, IT response functions embody a rich basis set for simultaneously representing skeletal and external shape of complex objects. This would be especially useful for representing biological shapes, which are often characterized by both complex, articulated skeletal structure and specific surface features.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84862646506&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84862646506&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.04.029
DO - 10.1016/j.neuron.2012.04.029
M3 - Article
C2 - 22726839
AN - SCOPUS:84862646506
SN - 0896-6273
VL - 74
SP - 1099
EP - 1113
JO - Neuron
JF - Neuron
IS - 6
ER -