The Neural Representation of Shape

This chapter reviews the cortical ventral form pathway that is concerned with shape processing and object recognition in primates and focuses on four aspects of the ventral system, the anatomical organization of the constituent areas, and their interconnections.

Abstract

In primates, visual processing is accomplished by a system composed of several dozen distinct subcortical and cortical visual areas organized into both parallel and hierarchical pathways. This chapter reviews the cortical ventral form pathway that is concerned with shape processing and object recognition. The dorsal pathway is more concerned with motion and spatial position. The chapter focuses on four aspects of the ventral system, the anatomical organization of the constituent areas, and their interconnections. The physiological responses of the various areas and their influences upon one another, the effects of extra retinal factors such as attention, learning and memory, and motor control, and the computational principles underlying processing in each area to the extent that such principles are known. Future advances in all these areas should bring a much richer conceptualization of shape representation in vision. Because vision is an excellent model system for many brain functions, these findings should be applicable to many aspects of systems and cognitive neuroscience.