Distributed and overlapping representations of faces and objects in ventral temporal cortex

The functional architecture of the object vision pathway in the human brain was investigated using functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure pa tterns of response in ventral temporal cortex white subjects viewed faces, cats, five categories of man-made objects, and nonsense pictures. A distinc t pattern of response was found for each stimulus category. The distinctive ness of the response to a given category was not due simply to the regions that responded maximally to that category, because the category being viewe d also could be identified on the basis of the pattern of response when tho se regions were excluded from the analysis. Patterns of response that discr iminated among A categories were found even within cortical regions that re sponded maximally to only one category. These results indicate that the rep resentations of faces and objects in ventral temporal cortex are widely dis tributed and overlapping.