Curvature processing in human visual cortical areas

Yue, Xiaomin; Robert, Sophia; Ungerleider, Leslie G.

doi:10.1016/j.neuroimage.2020.117295

Cited by 49 publications

(47 citation statements)

References 49 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Relatedly, our results might also be explained because of a higher frequency of curved contours in natural scenes ( Ruta et al, 2019 ). In a recent study, Yue, Robert & Ungerleider (2020) found a specialized cortical network for curvature processing in humans. They suggested the interaction between preference for curvilinearity with central-peripheral processing biases as an important organizing principle for temporal cortex topography.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Shape familiarity modulates preference for curvature in drawings of common-use objects

Chuquichambi

Palumbo

Rey

et al. 2021

PeerJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Drawing is a way to represent common-use objects. The contour of an object is a salient feature that defines its identity. Preference for a contour (curved or angular) may depend on how familiar the resulting shape looks for that given object. In this research, we examined the influence of shape familiarity on preference for curved or sharp-angled drawings of common-use objects. We also examined the possibility that some individual differences modulated this preference. Preference for curvature was assessed with a liking rating task (Experiment 1) and with a two-alternative forced-choice task simulating approach/avoidance responses (Experiment 2). Shape familiarity was assessed with a familiarity selection task where participants selected the most familiar shape between the curved and the angular version for each object, or whether both shapes were equally familiar for the object. We found a consistent preference for curvature in both experiments. This preference increased when the objects with a curved shape were selected as the most familiar ones. We also found preference for curvature when participants selected the shape of objects as equally familiar. However, there was no preference for curvature or preference for angularity when participants selected the sharp-angled shapes as the most familiar ones. In Experiment 2, holistic and affective types of intuition predicted higher preference for curvature. Conversely, participants with higher scores in the unconventionality facet showed less preference for the curved drawings. We conclude that shape familiarity and individual characteristics modulate preference for curvature.

show abstract

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 96%

Shape familiarity modulates preference for curvature in drawings of common-use objects

Chuquichambi

Palumbo

Rey

et al. 2021

PeerJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Curvature is one of the important features that has been shown play an important role for visual and tactile perceptions ( Pont et al, 1997 ; Barth et al, 1998 ; Lim and Leek, 2012 ). Curvature information plays a particularly important role to provide the three-dimensional information of the surface structure of an object ( Todd, 2004 ; Strother et al, 2015 ; Yue et al, 2020 ). fMRI studies of monkeys and humans demonstrated that the temporal cortex and retinotopic regions of the visual system are involved in the processing of curvature information ( Yue et al, 2020 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Curvature information plays a particularly important role to provide the three-dimensional information of the surface structure of an object ( Todd, 2004 ; Strother et al, 2015 ; Yue et al, 2020 ). fMRI studies of monkeys and humans demonstrated that the temporal cortex and retinotopic regions of the visual system are involved in the processing of curvature information ( Yue et al, 2020 ). However, curvature information is processed by cutaneous receptors in the tactile system ( Kappers, 2011 ) to judge the differences between objects.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Visual and Tactile Sensory Systems Share Common Features in Object Recognition

Tabrik

Behroozi

Schlaffke

et al. 2021

eNeuro

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Although we use our visual and tactile sensory systems interchangeably for object recognition on a daily basis, little is known about the mechanism underlying this ability. This study examined how 3D shape features of objects form two congruent and interchangeable visual and tactile perceptual spaces in healthy male and female participants. Since active exploration plays an important role in shape processing, a virtual reality environment was used to visually explore 3D objects called digital embryos without using the tactile sense. In addition, during the tactile procedure, blindfolded participants actively palpated a 3D-printed version of the same objects with both hands. We first demonstrated that the visual and tactile perceptual spaces were highly similar. We then extracted a series of 3D shape features to investigate how visual and tactile exploration can lead to the correct identification of the relationships between objects. The results indicate that both modalities share the same shape features to form highly similar veridical spaces. This finding suggests that visual and tactile systems might apply similar cognitive processes to sensory inputs that enable humans to rely merely on one modality in the absence of another to recognize surrounding objects.

show abstract

“…While our experiments do not have direct evidence to pinpoint the responsible features, the use of texform images constrained the possibilities: Among visual features preserved in texform images, the curviness of an object was found to correlate with the object’s physical size (Konkle, 2011; Long et al, 2016). Curviness is also related to real-world size in large-scale neural organization (Long et al, 2018; see also Srihasam, Vincent, & Livingston, 2014; Yue, Robert, & Ungerleider, 2020), and has also been linked to eccentricity computations (e.g., see Ponce, Hartmann, Livingstone, 2017). Thus, these properties make curviness a candidate feature that perceptually contributes to aesthetic preference on visual size.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

How big should this object be? Perceptual influences on viewing-size preferences

Chen

Deza

Konkle

2021

Preprint

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

When viewing objects depicted in a frame, observers prefer to view large objects like cars in larger sizes and smaller objects like cups in smaller sizes. That is, the visual size of an object that "looks best" is linked to its typical physical size in the world. Why is this the case? One intuitive possibility is that these preferences are driven by semantic knowledge: For example, when we recognize a sofa, we access our knowledge about its real-world size, and this influences what size we prefer to view the sofa within a frame. However, might visual processing play a role in this phenomenon--that is, do visual features that are related to big and small objects look better at big and small visual sizes, respectively, even when observers do not have explicit access to semantic knowledge about the objects? To test this possibility, we used "texform" images, which are synthesized versions of recognizable objects, which critically retain local perceptual texture and coarse form information, but are no longer explicitly recognizable. To test for visual size preferences, we used a two-interval forced choice task, in which each texform was presented at the preferred visual size of its corresponding original image, and a visual size slightly bigger or smaller. Observers consistently selected the texform presented at the canonical visual size as the more aesthetically pleasing one. These results suggest that the preferred visual size of an object depends not only on explicit knowledge of its real-world size, but also can be evoked by mid-level visual features that systematically covary with an object's real-world size.

show abstract

Curvature processing in human visual cortical areas

Cited by 49 publications

References 49 publications

Shape familiarity modulates preference for curvature in drawings of common-use objects

Shape familiarity modulates preference for curvature in drawings of common-use objects

Visual and Tactile Sensory Systems Share Common Features in Object Recognition

How big should this object be? Perceptual influences on viewing-size preferences

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About