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Representation of the Spatial Relationship Among Object Parts by Neurons in Macaque Inferotemporal Cortex

¹Laboratory for Integrative Neural Systems, RIKEN Brain Science Institute, Saitama; ²Division of Biological Sciences, Graduate School of Science, Hokkaido University, Sapporo; ³Laboratory of Visual Physiology, National Institute of Sensory Organs, Tokyo, Japan

Submitted 21 November 2005; accepted in final form 27 August 2006

We investigated object representation in area TE, the anterior part of monkey inferotemporal (IT) cortex, with a combination of optical and extracellular recordings in anesthetized monkeys. We found neurons that respond to visual stimuli composed of naturally distinguishable parts. These neurons were sensitive to a particular spatial arrangement of parts but less sensitive to differences in local features within individual parts. Thus these neurons were activated when arbitrary local features were arranged in a particular spatial configuration, suggesting that they may be responsible for representing the spatial configuration of object images. Previously it has been reported that many neurons in area TE respond to visual features less complex than natural objects, but it has remained unclear whether these features are related to local features of object images or to more global features. These results indicate that TE neurons represent not only local features but also global features such as the spatial relationship among object parts.

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