Abstract
A central assumption in most modern theories of memory is that memory and perception are functionally and anatomically segregated. For example, amnesia resulting from medial temporal lobe (MTL) lesions is traditionally considered to be a selective deficit in long-term declarative memory with no effect on perceptual processes. The work I will present offers a new perspective that supports the notion that memory and perception are inextricably intertwined, relying on shared neural representations and computational mechanisms. Specifically, we addressed this issue by comparing the neural pattern similarities among object-evoked fMRI responses with behavior-based models that independently captured the visual and conceptual similarities among these stimuli. Our results revealed evidence for distinctive coding of visual features in lateral occipital cortex, and conceptual features in the temporal pole and parahippocampal cortex. By contrast, we found evidence for integrative coding of visual and conceptual object features in the perirhinal cortex of the MTL. Taken together, our findings suggest that perirhinal cortex uniquely supports the representation of fully-specified object concepts through the integration of their visual and conceptual features.
Meeting abstract presented at VSS 2018