Since Ungerleider and Mishkin [Underleider LG, Mishkin M (1982)Two cortical visual systems. Analysis of Visual Behavior, eds Ingle MA, Goodale MI, Masfield RJW (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA), pp 549 -586] proposed separate visual pathways for processing object shape and location, steady progress has been made in characterizing the organization of the two kinds of information in extrastriate visual cortex in humans. However, to date, there has been no broad-based survey of category and location information across all major functionally defined object-selective regions. In this study, we used an fMRI region-of-interest (ROI) approach to identify eight regions characterized by their strong selectivity for particular object categories (faces, scenes, bodies, and objects). Participants viewed four types of stimuli (faces, scenes, bodies, and cars) appearing in each of three different spatial locations (above, below, or at fixation). Analyses based on the mean response and voxelwise patterns of response in each ROI reveal location information in almost all of the known object-selective regions. Furthermore, category and location information can be read out independently of one another such that most regions contain both position-invariant category information and category-invariant position information. Finally, we find substantially more location information in ROIs on the lateral than those on the ventral surface of the brain, even though these regions have equal amounts of category information. Although the presence of both location and category information in most object-selective regions argues against a strict physical separation of processing streams for object shape and location, the ability to extract position-invariant category information and category-invariant position information from the same neural population indicates that form and location information nonetheless remain functionally independent.fusiform face area ͉ position invariance ͉ parahippocampal place area U ngerleider and Mishkin (1) argued in a seminal article that information about form and location are segregated into separate processing streams in the primate visual system. Subsequent studies, using lesions, neurophysiology, and fMRI, have generally supported this hypothesis or its variants (2). However, other evidence indicates that the two pathways are not completely distinct but instead have multiple interconnections (3) and that the occipitoparietal ''where'' pathway (4) contains shape information, and the occipitotemporal ''what'' pathway contains location information (5, 6). Here, we used mean population response and multivariate pattern methods (7-9) with a region-of-interest (ROI) approach to ask how much location information is present in shape-selective cortex in humans, how that location information is distributed across specific functionally defined regions of occipitotemporal cortex, and how location information relates to category information in this pathway.Extensive fMRI investigations over the last decade have characterized th...

The mammalian visual system contains an extensive web of feedback connections projecting from “higher” cortical areas to “lower” areas including primary visual cortex. Although multiple theories have been proposed, the role of these connections in perceptual processing is not understood. Here we report a surprising new phenomenon not predicted by prior theories of feedback: the pattern of fMRI response in human foveal retinotopic cortex contains information about objects presented in the periphery, far away from the fovea. This information is position invariant, correlated with perceptual discrimination accuracy, and found only in foveal, not peripheral, retinotopic cortex. Our data cannot be explained by differential eye movements, activation from the fixation cross, or spillover activation from peripheral retinotopic cortex or from LOC. Instead, our findings indicate that position-invariant object information from higher cortical areas is fed back to foveal retinotopic cortex, enhancing task performance.

Classification methods show that the spatial pattern of a functional magnetic resonance imaging response across the cortex contains category information, but whether such patterns are used, or 'read out', in behavioral performance remains untested. We show that although the spatial pattern in both the retinotopic and lateral occipital cortex (LOC) in humans contains category information, only in the LOC is the pattern stronger for correct than for incorrect trials. Thus, some, but not all, spatial patterns are read out during task performance.