The human brain can recognize
thousands of different objects, but neuroscientists have long grappled with how
the brain organizes object representation — in other words, how the brain
perceives and identifies different objects. Now researchers at MIT’s Computer
Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) and Department of Brain and
Cognitive Sciences have discovered that the brain organizes objects based on
their physical size, with a specific region of the brain reserved for
recognizing large objects and another reserved for small objects. As part of
their study, they took 3D scans of brain activity during experiments in which
participants were asked to look at images of big and small objects or visualize
items of differing size. By evaluating the scans, the researchers found that
there are distinct regions of the brain that respond to big objects and small
objects.
By looking at the arrangement of
the responses, they found a systematic organization of big to small object
responses across the brain’s cerebral cortex. Large objects, they learned, are
processed in the parahippocampal region of the brain, an area located by the
hippocampus, which is also responsible for navigating through spaces and for
processing the location of different places, like the beach or a building.
Small objects are handled in the inferior temporal region of the brain, near
regions that are active when the brain has to manipulate tools like a hammer or
a screwdriver. The work could have major implications for the field of
robotics, in particular in developing techniques for how robots deal with
different objects, from grasping a pen to sitting in a chair.
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