Neuroimaging and the localization of function in visual cognition

ABSTRACT

Several recent studies have interpreted multivariate evidence for stimulus-specific patterns of activity in parietal and/or frontal cortex as evidence for a representational function in those regions that is qualitatively similar to the representational functions of the visual system. Here we argue that although evidence that a brain system takes on a different configuration for each stimulus in a stimulus set is a necessary property for that system having a role in perceptual representation, such evidence is not specific for this function. Drawing on several examples from the recent literature, we offer alternative accounts for understanding stimulus-specificity in parietal and frontal cortex that are consistent with longstanding ideas that activity in these regions is best understood as implementing control-related, rather than inherently representational, functions.

KEYWORDS:

• Attention
• working memory
• fMRI
• multivariate

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 For a recent review that more thoroughly covers a broad range of human and nonhuman primate studies, and related theories, the reader is referred to Postle and Oberauer (in press). For full-throated advocacy of sensorimotor recruitment in visual working memory, see Postle (in press).

2 There are many important aspects of the Sheldon et al. (in press) study that differ from that of Ester et al. (2016), including that one addressed object-based and the other feature-based attention, and that one carried out analyses at the category level and the other at the item level. These will be considered in the section on Future directions, but for the purposes of this section of this commentary the results from Sheldon et al. (in press) lend some empirical support to the plausibility of our alternative interpretation of the results of Ester et al. (2016).

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by National Institutes of Health [grant numbers MH064498, MH095984].