August 2009
Volume 9, Issue 8
Free
Vision Sciences Society Annual Meeting Abstract  |   August 2009
Natural scene categorization by global scene properties: Evidence from patterns of fMRI activity
Author Affiliations
  • Soojin Park
    Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT
  • Michelle Greene
    Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT
  • Timothy F. Brady
    Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT
  • Aude Oliva
    Department of Brain & Cognitive Sciences, MIT
Journal of Vision August 2009, Vol.9, 958. doi:https://doi.org/10.1167/9.8.958
  • Views
  • Share
  • Tools
    • Alerts
      ×
      This feature is available to authenticated users only.
      Sign In or Create an Account ×
    • Get Citation

      Soojin Park, Michelle Greene, Timothy F. Brady, Aude Oliva; Natural scene categorization by global scene properties: Evidence from patterns of fMRI activity. Journal of Vision 2009;9(8):958. https://doi.org/10.1167/9.8.958.

      Download citation file:


      © ARVO (1962-2015); The Authors (2016-present)

      ×
  • Supplements
Abstract

Human scene categorization is remarkably rapid and accurate, but little is known about the neural representation mediating this feat. While previous studies on neural representation of scenes have focused on basic level scene categories, here we examined whether the neural representation of scenes reflect global properties of scene structure, such as openness of a space, or properties of surfaces and contents within a space, such as naturalness. In an fMRI study, human participants performed a one-back task on blocks of images of four scene groups: Open Natural images, Closed Natural images, Open Urban images, Closed Urban images. Each image group included multiple basic level categories. For example, Open Natural images included open views of fields, oceans and deserts; while Open Urban images included open views of highways, parking lots, and airports. For each participant, we defined regions of interest (ROIs) of the parahippocampal place area (PPA), the fusiform face area (FFA), lateral occipital complex (LOC) and V1. Multivariate pattern analysis was applied to voxels within each ROIs, and split-half pattern correlation and Euclidian distances across voxel activations were calculated (Haxby et al., 2001). We observed high identification accuracy in the PPA and V1, but not in the FFA and LOC. Most interestingly, when the correct identification failed in the PPA, the confusion was between images with the same layout rather than between images with the same content. For example, Open Natural images were often highly correlated with Open Urban images, but rarely with Closed Natural images. These results suggest that a critical component of scene representation in the brain is the coding of global properties of spatial layout.

Park, S. Greene, M. Brady, T. F. Oliva, A. (2009). Natural scene categorization by global scene properties: Evidence from patterns of fMRI activity [Abstract]. Journal of Vision, 9(8):958, 958a, http://journalofvision.org/9/8/958/, doi:10.1167/9.8.958. [CrossRef]
Footnotes
 Funded by NSF CAREER award to A.O. (IIS 0546262) and NSF-GRF to M.R.G. and T.F.B. We thank the Athinoula A. Martinos Imaging Center at McGovern Institute for Brain Research, MIT for help with fMRI data acquisition.
×
×

This PDF is available to Subscribers Only

Sign in or purchase a subscription to access this content. ×

You must be signed into an individual account to use this feature.

×