Representing stuff in the human brain

Dynamic dot displays reveal material motion network in the human brain

“…The widespread activation that we find in response to quite sparse stimuli suggests that material perception is an inherently distributed process (see Schmid & Doerschner, 2019). Consistent with this idea, there is a growing body of literature suggesting that object category representations are grounded in distributed networks (e.g.…”

“…Cant & Goodale 2007; Cant & Xu, 2012, 2015, 2016; Gallivan et al 2014; Eck et al, 2016; Kitada et al 2014) are indeed specialized for processing visual (optical) properties or whether they represent material properties more generally. Our results so far suggest the latter, but further investigation, for example using a multivariate design and analysis approach, would allow one to better test this (Schmid & Doerschner, 2019). We expand on this below.…”

“…For example, the ventral activity we find overlaps with posterior fusiform gyrus (pFs), fusiform gyrus (FG), collateral sulcus (CoS), lingual gyrus (LG), which have been implicated in the processing of gloss (pFs), texture (CoS, LG, FG), and material categories (FG, CoS; see Komatsu & Goda, 2018 for a review). This might suggest that these regions are not specialized for processing the image properties that depict surface properties per se, or, alternatively, that these regions are activated due to associations between material motion and surface properties (Schmid & Doerschner, 2019). We expand on this idea in section 4.3: Encoding directly perceived versus associated properties.…”

“…The use of static images when investigating the visual processing of materials is somewhat justified because, although material perception is a multisensory (Baumgartner et al 2013), dynamic experience (Schmid & Doerschner, 2019), many material qualities can be conveyed through images alone (Paulun et al 2017; Schmid & Doerschner, 2018; Schmidt et al 2017; van Assen & Fleming 2016, Baumgartner et al 2013, Xiao et al 2016). But not all material properties can be faithfully conveyed through static images, and most mechanical material properties become much more vividly apparent with motion: watching a rubber band stretching, a jelly jittering, and hair bending elicits strong impressions of elasticity, wobbliness, and softness, respectively.…”

Material constancy in perception and working memory

“…Recently, perception and recognition of material properties or, more broadly, “shitsukan” (the sense of quality; Komatsu & Goda, 2018 ) is gaining increased interest in vision science. Although our understanding of material perception is advancing (see Fleming, 2017 ; Komatsu & Goda, 2018 ; Schmid & Doerschner, 2019 for recent reviews), it remains a challenging domain. The visual system must detect specific visual features that are diagnostic of particular materials ( Fleming, 2014 ) to achieve perceptual stability, or constancy, in response to changes in viewing conditions.…”