We experience our visual environment as a seamless, immersive panorama. Yet, each view is discrete and fleeting, separated by expansive eye movements and discontinuous views of our spatial surroundings. How are discrete views of a panoramic environment knit together into a broad, unified memory representation? Regions of the brain's "scene network" are well poised to integrate retinal input and memory [1]: they are visually driven [2, 3] but also densely interconnected with memory structures in the medial temporal lobe [4]. Further, these regions harbor memory signals relevant for navigation [5-8] and adapt across overlapping shifts in scene viewpoint [9, 10]. However, it is unknown whether regions of the scene network support visual memory for the panoramic environment outside of the current field of view and, further, how memory for the surrounding environment influences ongoing perception. Here, we demonstrate that specific regions of the scene network-the retrosplenial complex (RSC) and occipital place area (OPA)-unite discrete views of a 360° panoramic environment, both current and out of sight, in a common representational space. Further, individual scene views prime associated representations of the panoramic environment in behavior, facilitating subsequent perceptual judgments. We propose that this dynamic interplay between memory and perception plays an important role in weaving the fabric of continuous visual experience.

The fusiform face area responds selectively to faces and is causally involved in face perception. How does face-selectivity in the fusiform arise in development, and why does it develop so systematically in the same location across individuals? Preferential cortical responses to faces develop early in infancy, yet evidence is conflicting on the central question of whether visual experience with faces is necessary. Here, we revisit this question by scanning congenitally blind individuals with fMRI while they haptically explored 3D-printed faces and other stimuli. We found robust face-selective responses in the lateral fusiform gyrus of individual blind participants during haptic exploration of stimuli, indicating that neither visual experience with faces nor fovea-biased inputs is necessary for face-selectivity to arise in the lateral fusiform gyrus. Our results instead suggest a role for long-range connectivity in specifying the location of face-selectivity in the human brain.

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To fluidly engage with the world, our brains must simultaneously represent both the scene in front of us and our memory of the immediate surrounding environment (i.e., local visuospatial context). How does the brain’s functional architecture enable sensory and mnemonic representations to closely interface, while also avoiding sensory-mnemonic interference? Here, we asked this question using first-person, head-mounted virtual reality (VR) and fMRI. Using VR, human participants of both sexes learned a set of immersive, real-world visuospatial environments in which we systematically manipulated the extent of visuospatial context associated with a scene image in memory across three learning conditions, spanning from a single field-of-view to a city street. We used individualized, within-subject fMRI to determine which brain areas support memory of the visuospatial context associated with a scene during recall (Exp. 1) and recognition (Exp. 2). Across the whole brain, activity in three patches of cortex was modulated by the amount of known visuospatial context, each located immediately anterior to one of the three scene perception areas of high-level visual cortex. Individual subject analyses revealed that these anterior patches corresponded to three functionally-defined place memory areas, which selectively respond when visually recalling personally familiar places. In addition to showing activity levels that were modulated by the amount of visuospatial context, multivariate analyses showed that these anterior areas represented the identity of the specific environment being recalled. Together, these results suggest a convergence zone for scene perception and memory of the local visuospatial context at the anterior edge of high-level visual cortex.Significance statement:As we move through the world, the visual scene around us is integrated with our memory of the wider visuospatial context. Here, we sought to understand how the functional architecture of the brain enables coexisting representations of the current visual scene and memory of the surrounding environment. Using a combination of immersive virtual reality and fMRI, we show that memory of visuospatial context outside the current field-of-view is represented in a distinct set of brain areas immediately anterior and adjacent to the perceptually-oriented scene-selective areas of high-level visual cortex. This functional architecture would allow efficient interaction between immediately adjacent mnemonic and perceptual areas, while also minimizing mnemonic-perceptual interference.