The functional organization and development of the human visual scene processing system Restricted; Files Only
Kamps, Frederik (Fall 2019)
Published
Abstract
Recognizing the local visual environment (or “scene”) and navigating through it is essential for survival. Perhaps not surprisingly then, human cortex contains a set of cortical regions dedicated to visual scene processing, including the occipital place area (OPA), parahippocampal place area (PPA), and retrosplenial complex (RSC). However, beyond establishing the general involvement of these regions in scene processing (i.e., responding more to images of scenes than to images of everyday objects and faces in neuroimaging studies), two fundamental questions remain unanswered: What is the precise function of each region in adult human visual scene processing? And how does that function get wired up in development? Here I present converging neural, causal, and developmental evidence for two hypotheses. First, I test the hypothesis that scene processing depends on dissociable systems for navigating and categorizing scenes (Papers 1-2). Consistent with this hypothesis, I found that the adult OPA responds more strongly than PPA and RSC to first-person perspective motion information (i.e., videos mimicking visual experience of actually walking through a scene), suggesting that OPA is involved in what I call “visually-guided navigation”, while PPA and RSC support other aspects of scene recognition and navigation. Further, I found that adults with Williams syndrome (a developmental disorder involving cortical thinning in and around OPA) are impaired on a visually-guided navigation task, but not a scene categorization task (e.g., recognizing a kitchen versus a living room), providing causal evidence for dissociable visually-guided navigation and scene categorization systems. Second, I test the further hypothesis that the visually-guided navigation and scene categorization systems develop independently, with visually-guided navigation maturing later than scene categorization (Papers 2-3). Consistent with this hypothesis, I indeed found that visually-guided navigation ability emerges more slowly than scene categorization ability across childhood. Moreover, I found that first-person perspective motion processing in OPA is still developing across this same age range, further revealing that the visually-guided navigation system undergoes protracted development. Taken together, these findings indicate that human visual scene processing is supported by at least two dissociable systems: an earlier-developing scene categorization system in PPA, and a later-developing visually-guided navigation system in OPA.
Table of Contents
General Introduction 1
Paper 1: The occipital place area represents first-person perspective motion information through scenes
Title 31
Abstract 32
Introduction 33
Methods 34
Results 41
Discussion 47
Paper 2: Dissociable systems for recognizing places and navigating through them: causal and developmental evidence
Title 52
Abstract 53
Introduction 54
Methods 57
Results 61
Discussion 77
Paper 3: Neural evidence for the protracted development of human visually-guided navigation
Title 83
Abstract 84
Introduction 85
Methods 88
Results 94
Discussion 103
General Discussion 108
References 113
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File download under embargo until 03 January 2026 | 2019-08-25 15:04:08 -0400 | File download under embargo until 03 January 2026 |
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