CBB Seminar - Yaoda Xu (Harvard) - Understanding visual representation in human parietal cortex

Date: 

Thursday, October 20, 2016, 12:00pm to 1:30pm

Location: 

WJH 765

 

Abstract:

Although the primate parietal cortex has been traditionally associated with spatial location, attention, and action-related processing, over the last two decades, a handful of monkey neurophysiology and human imaging studies have shown that non-spatial visual information may also be directly represented there. In this talk, I will first present extensive fMRI MVPA decoding evidence showing that both low level simple visual stimuli (e.g., orientation) and high level abstract visual stimuli (e.g., viewpoint invariant face identity information) can be directly represented in the human parietal cortex. I will then describe characteristics of these parietal visual representations and whether or not they are distinct from those formed in ventral visual regions. I will propose that by understanding visual representation in parietal cortex, we may bridge existing disparate views regarding the precise function of parietal cortex and form a unified account regarding the role of parietal cortex in vision, cognition and action.