Early Electrophysiological Markers of Navigational Affordances in Scenes.

Scene perception and spatial navigation are interdependent cognitive functions, and there is increasing evidence that cortical areas that process perceptual scene properties also carry information about the potential for navigation in the environment (navigational affordances). However, the temporal stages by which visual information is transformed into navigationally relevant information are not yet known. We hypothesized that navigational affordances are encoded during perceptual processing and therefore should modulate early visually evoked ERPs, especially the scene-selective P2 component.

Children are sensitive to mutual information in intermediate-complexity face and non-face features.

Understanding developmental changes in children's use of specific visual information for recognizing object categories is essential for understanding how experience shapes recognition. Research on the development of face recognition has focused on children's use of low-level information (e.g.

The Case of the Cognitive (Opti)miser: Electrophysiological Correlates of Working Memory Maintenance Predict Demand Avoidance.

People are often considered cognitive misers. When given a free choice between two tasks, people tend to choose tasks requiring less cognitive effort. Such demand avoidance (DA) is associated with cognitive control, but it is still not clear to what extent individual differences in cognitive control can account for variations in DA.

Artificially-generated scenes demonstrate the importance of global scene properties for scene perception.

Recent electrophysiological research highlights the significance of global scene properties (GSPs) for scene perception. However, since real-world scenes span a range of low-level stimulus properties and high-level contextual semantics, GSP effects may also reflect additional processing of such non-global factors. We examined this question by asking whether Event-Related Potentials (ERPs) to GSPs will still be observed when specific low- and high-level scene properties are absent from the scene.

Neural Sensitivity to Mutual Information in Intermediate-Complexity Face Features Changes during Childhood.

One way in which face recognition develops during infancy and childhood is with regard to the visual information that contributes most to recognition judgments. Adult face recognition depends on critical features spanning a hierarchy of complexity, including low-level, intermediate, and high-level visual information. To date, the development of adult-like information biases for face recognition has focused on low-level features, which are computationally well-defined but low in complexity, and high-level features, which are high in complexity, but not defined precisely.

Pre-stimulus brain state predicts auditory pattern identification accuracy.

Recent studies show that pre-stimulus band-specific power and phase in the electroencephalogram (EEG) can predict accuracy on tasks involving the detection of near-threshold stimuli. However, results in the auditory modality have been mixed, and few works have examined pre-stimulus features when more complex decisions are made (e.g.

Investigating Neural Sensorimotor Mechanisms Underlying Flight Expertise in Pilots: Preliminary Data From an EEG Study.

Over the last decade, the efforts toward unraveling the complex interplay between the brain, body, and environment have set a promising line of research that utilizes neuroscience to study human performance in natural work contexts such as aviation. Thus, a relatively new discipline called neuroergonomics is holding the promise of studying the neural mechanisms underlying human performance in pursuit of both theoretical and practical insights. In this work, we utilized a neuroergonomic approach by combining insights from ecological psychology and embodied cognition to study flight expertise.

Establishing reference scales for scene naturalness and openness : Naturalness and openness scales.

A key question in the field of scene perception is what information people use when making decisions about images of scenes. A significant body of evidence has indicated the importance of global properties of a scene image. Ideally, well-controlled, real-world images would be used to examine the influence of these properties on perception.

The influence of behavioral relevance on the processing of global scene properties: An ERP study.

Recent work studying the temporal dynamics of visual scene processing (Harel et al., 2016) has found that global scene properties (GSPs) modulate the amplitude of early Event-Related Potentials (ERPs). It is still not clear, however, to what extent the processing of these GSPs is influenced by their behavioral relevance, determined by the goals of the observer.

How Configural Is the Configural Superiority Effect? A Neuroimaging Investigation of Emergent Features in Visual Cortex.

The perception of a visual stimulus is dependent not only upon local features, but also on the arrangement of those features. When stimulus features are perceptually well organized (e.g.

The Temporal Dynamics of Scene Processing: A Multifaceted EEG Investigation.

Our remarkable ability to process complex visual scenes is supported by a network of scene-selective cortical regions. Despite growing knowledge about the scene representation in these regions, much less is known about the temporal dynamics with which these representations emerge. We conducted two experiments aimed at identifying and characterizing the earliest markers of scene-specific processing.

What is special about expertise? Visual expertise reveals the interactive nature of real-world object recognition.

Ever since Diamond and Carey (1986. J. Exp.

Task context impacts visual object processing differentially across the cortex.

Perception reflects an integration of "bottom-up" (sensory-driven) and "top-down" (internally generated) signals. Although models of visual processing often emphasize the central role of feed-forward hierarchical processing, less is known about the impact of top-down signals on complex visual representations. Here, we investigated whether and how the observer's goals modulate object processing across the cortex.

Beyond perceptual expertise: revisiting the neural substrates of expert object recognition.

Real-world expertise provides a valuable opportunity to understand how experience shapes human behavior and neural function. In the visual domain, the study of expert object recognition, such as in car enthusiasts or bird watchers, has produced a large, growing, and often-controversial literature. Here, we synthesize this literature, focusing primarily on results from functional brain imaging, and propose an interactive framework that incorporates the impact of high-level factors, such as attention and conceptual knowledge, in supporting expertise.

Are all types of expertise created equal? Car experts use different spatial frequency scales for subordinate categorization of cars and faces.

A much-debated question in object recognition is whether expertise for faces and expertise for non-face objects utilize common perceptual information. We investigated this issue by assessing the diagnostic information required for different types of expertise. Specifically, we asked whether face categorization and expert car categorization at the subordinate level relies on the same spatial frequency (SF) scales.

Neuroanatomical correlates of visual car expertise.

Expertise in non-visual domains such as musical performance is associated with differences in gray matter volume of particular regions of the human brain. Whether this is also the case for expertise in visual object recognition is unknown. Here we tested whether individual variability in the ability to recognize car models, from novice performance to high level of expertise, is associated with specific structural changes in gray matter volume.

Deconstructing visual scenes in cortex: gradients of object and spatial layout information.

Real-world visual scenes are complex cluttered, and heterogeneous stimuli engaging scene- and object-selective cortical regions including parahippocampal place area (PPA), retrosplenial complex (RSC), and lateral occipital complex (LOC). To understand the unique contribution of each region to distributed scene representations, we generated predictions based on a neuroanatomical framework adapted from monkey and tested them using minimal scenes in which we independently manipulated both spatial layout (open, closed, and gradient) and object content (furniture, e.g.

Basic-level categorization of intermediate complexity fragments reveals top-down effects of expertise in visual perception.

Visual expertise is usually defined as the superior ability to distinguish between exemplars of a homogeneous category. Here, we ask how real-world expertise manifests at basic-level categorization and assess the contribution of stimulus-driven and top-down knowledge-based factors to this manifestation. Car experts and novices categorized computer-selected image fragments of cars, airplanes, and faces.

Top-down engagement modulates the neural expressions of visual expertise.

Perceptual expertise is traditionally associated with enhanced brain activity in response to objects of expertise in category-selective visual cortex, primarily face-selective regions. We reevaluated this view by investigating whether the brain activity associated with expertise in object recognition is limited to category-selective cortex and specifically whether the extent of expertise-related activity manifests automatically or whether it can be top-down modulated. We conducted 2 functional magnetic resonance imaging studies comparing changes in hemodynamic activity associated with car expertise in a conventional 1-back task (Experiment 1) and when the task relevance of cars was explicitly manipulated (Experiment 2).

Stimulus type, level of categorization, and spatial-frequencies utilization: implications for perceptual categorization hierarchies.

The type of visual information needed for categorizing faces and nonface objects was investigated by manipulating spatial frequency scales available in the image during a category verification task addressing basic and subordinate levels. Spatial filtering had opposite effects on faces and airplanes that were modulated by categorization level. The absence of low frequencies impaired the categorization of faces similarly at both levels, whereas the absence of high frequencies was inconsequential throughout.

Aging effects on early-stage face perception: an ERP study.

We compared early stages of face processing in young and older participants as indexed by ERPs elicited by faces and non-face stimuli presented in upright and inverted orientations. The P1 and N170 components were larger in older than in young participants. However, the early distinction between stimulus categories as reflected by N170 face was similar across groups.