Cortical Brain Regions Associated with Color Processing: An FMRi Study

Abstract

To clarify whether the neural pathways concerning color processing are the same for natural objects, for artifacts objects and for non-objects we examined brain responses measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging (FMRI) during a covert naming task including the factors color (color vs. black&white (B&W)) and stimulus type (natural vs. artifacts vs. non-objects). Our results indicate that the superior parietal lobule and precuneus (BA 7) bilaterally, the right hippocampus and the right fusifom gyrus (V4) make part of a network responsible for color processing both for natural objects and artifacts, but not for non-objects. When color objects (both natural and artifacts) were contrasted with color non-objects we observed activations in the right parahippocampal gyrus (BA 35/36), the superior parietal lobule (BA 7) bilaterally, the left inferior middle temporal region (BA 20/21) and the inferior and superior frontal regions (BA 10/11/47). These additional activations suggest that colored objects recruit brain regions that are related to visual semantic information/retrieval and brain regions related to visuo-spatial processing. Overall, the results suggest that color information is an attribute that can improve object recognition (behavioral results) and activate a specific neural network related to visual semantic information that is more extensive than for B&W objects during object recognition.

The Contribution of Color to Object Recognition

“…This interaction between category and color diagnosticity was addressed by Nagai and Yokosawa (2003), who reported a color advantage for high color diagnostic objects regardless of their category. Corroborating this idea, other studies have reported a similar color advantage for natural objects and artifacts (Bramão, Faísca, Forkstam, Reis, & Petersson, 2010;Rossion & Pourtois, 2004;Uttl, Graf, & Santacruz, 2006). Our meta-analysis also supports the idea that color is important for the recognition of objects from both categories: we observed that color facilitates the ability to recognize both natural (d = 0.45, p < 0.001) and artifact objects (d = 0.36, p < 0.001) (Figure 4; .…”

The Influence of Color Information on the Recognition of Color Diagnostic and Noncolor Diagnostic Objects

“…There is some evidence that this is the case. A previous FMRI study showed that colored objects activate a neural network related to visual semantic information, which is more extensive than that for black and white objects (Bramão, Faísca, Forkstam, Reis, & Petersson, 2010).…”

The Color “Fruit”: Object Memories Defined by Color

“…However, studies using highly color-diagnostic objects have found that the addition of color information leads to greater facilitation for these objects when compared to those less linked to color [13]–[16]. This color based facilitation appears to result in the activation of a more extensive neural network than colorless images, which makes object recognition faster [17]. These findings illustrate how object recognition can be facilitated by the color specific information stored within memory.…”