Novel objects with causal event schemas elicit selective responses in tool- and hand-selective lateral occipitotemporal cortex

Abstract

Tool-selective lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) responds preferentially to images of tools (hammers, brushes) relative to non-tool objects (clocks, shoes). What drives these responses? Unlike other objects, tools exert effects on their surroundings. We tested whether LOTC responses are influenced by event schemas that denote different temporal relations. Participants learned about novel objects embedded in different event sequences. Causer objects moved prior to the appearance of an environmental event (e.g. stars), while Reactor objects moved after an event. Visual features and motor association were controlled. During functional magnetic resonance imaging, participants viewed still images of the objects. We localized tool-selective LOTC and non-tool-selective parahippocampal cortex (PHC) by contrasting neural responses to images of familiar tools and non-tools. We found that LOTC responded more to Causers than Reactors, while PHC did not. We also measured responses to images of hands, which elicit overlapping responses with tools. Across inferior temporal cortex, voxels’ tool and hand selectivity positively predicted a preferential response to Causers. We conclude that an event schema typical of tools is sufficient to drive LOTC and that category-preferential responses across the temporal lobe may reflect relational event structures typical of those domains.

The Primacy of Experience in Language Processing: Semantic Priming Is Driven Primarily by Experiential Similarity

“…The sense of causality, another ubiquitous aspect of human experience, is still poorly understood from a neurobiological perspective, but it is likely built upon experiential primitives that integrate sensory, motor, spatial, and temporal information into causal event schemas (Leshinskaya et al, 2021;Pelt et al, 2016;Pulvermüller, 2018;Rakison & Krogh, 2012).…”

“…Graspability and manipulability also integrate information across visual, tactile, proprioceptive, and motor systems, and appear to rely most strongly on multimodal cortical areas such as the posterior middle temporal gyrus, the anterior supramarginal gyrus, the anterior intraparietal sulcus, and the ventral precentral sulcus (Jastorff, Begliomini, Fabbri-Destro, Rizzolatti, & Orban, 2010;Peeters, Simone, Nelissen, Fabbri-Destro, Vanduffel, et al, 2009;Reynaud, Navarro, Lesourd, & Osiurak, 2019). The sense of causality, another ubiquitous aspect of human experience, is still poorly understood from a neurobiological perspective, but it is likely built upon experiential primitives that integrate sensory, motor, spatial, and temporal information into causal event schemas (Leshinskaya, Bajaj, & Thompson-Schill, 2021;Pelt, Heil, Kwisthout, Ondobaka, Rooij, et al, 2016;Pulvermüller, 2018;Rakison & Krogh, 2012). Therefore, while modality-specific effects on semantic language processing have provided evidence that sensory-motor systems contribute to semantic representation, many (if not most) sensory-motor features of experience combine information from multiple modalities.…”