Abstract
In order for us to perceive unitary objects, our visual system needs to bind object features, such as color, shape and orientation. While the areas that respond to different visual features have been well characterized, the areas that contribute to feature binding remain unclear. In the current study, we used fMRI adaptation to investigate areas that would show reductions of activation when conjunctions repeat over several consecutive displays. We compared trials in which conjunctions were repeated to trials in which the conjunctions changed, even though the features remained the same. Adaptation effects were found in the left and right parietal cortex and a similar trend was observed in the lateral occipital complex (LOC). Our results provide evidence for the role of the parietal cortex in binding and in object representation using a paradigm that removes difficulty and spatial scanning confounds that have influenced many previous studies of the neural correlates of binding.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2014