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Brain regions associated with retrieval of structurally coherent visual information

Nature volume 376, pages 587–590 (1995)Cite this article

Abstract

An object's global, three-dimensional structure may be represented by a specialized brain system involving regions of inferior temporal cortex1–3. This system's role in object representation can be understood by experiments in which people study drawings of novel objects with possible or impossible three-dimensional structures, and later make either possible/impossible object decisions or old/ new recognition decisions about briefly flashed studied and non-studied objects. Although object decisions about possible objects are facilitated by prior study, there is no corresponding facilitation for impossible objects, thereby implicating a system that is specifically involved in the representation of structurally coherent visual objects4. Here we show, by positron emission tomography (PET), that increases in blood flow in inferior temporal regions are associated with object decisions about possible but not impossible objects, and that there are increases in the vicinity of the hippocampal formation associated with episodic recognition of possible objects.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Harvard University, 33 Kirkland Street, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 02138, USA

    Daniel L. Schacter

  2. Department of Psychiatry, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, USA

    Eric Reiman

  3. Positron Emission Tomography Center, Good Samaritan Regional Medical Center, Phoenix, Arizona, 85006, USA

    Eric Reiman & Lang Sheng Yun

  4. Division of Neural Systems, Memory and Aging, University of Arizona, Tucson, Arizona, 85721, USA

    Anne Uecker

  5. Department of Psychology, University of Victoria at Wellington, Wellington, New Zealand

    Michael R. Roister

  6. Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, Arizona, 85287, USA

    Lang Sheng Yun

  7. Department of Psychology, Columbia University, New York, New York, 10027, USA

    Lynn A. Cooper

Authors
  1. Daniel L. Schacter
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  2. Eric Reiman
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  5. Lang Sheng Yun
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  6. Lynn A. Cooper
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Schacter, D., Reiman, E., Uecker, A. et al. Brain regions associated with retrieval of structurally coherent visual information. Nature 376, 587–590 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1038/376587a0

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