The representation of objects in the human occipital and temporal cortex

Recently, we identified, using fMRI, three bilateral regions in the ventral temporal cortex that responded preferentially to faces, houses, and chairs [Ishai, A., Ungerleider, L. G., Martin, A., Schouten, J. L., & Haxby, J. V . (1999). Distributed representation of objects in the human ventral visual pathway. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A., 96, 9379 -9384]. Here, we report differential patterns of activation, similar to tho se seen in the ventral temporal cortex, in bilateral regions of the ventral occipital cortex. We also found category-related responses in the dorsal o ccipital cortex and in the superior temporal sulcus. Moreover, rather chan activating discrete, segregated areas, each category was associated with it s own differential pattern of response across a broad expanse of cortex. Th e distributed patterns of response were similar across tasks (passive viewi ng, delayed matching) and presentation formats (photographs, line drawings) . We propose that the representation of objects in the ventral visual pathw ay, including both occipital and temporal regions, is not restricted to sma ll, highly selective patches of cortex but, instead, is a distributed repre sentation of information about object form. Within this distributed system, the representation of faces appears to be less extensive as compared to th e representations of nonface objects.