It Takes Two–Skilled Recognition of Objects Engages Lateral Areas in Both Hemispheres

Abstract

Our object recognition abilities, a direct product of our experience with objects, are fine-tuned to perfection. Left temporal and lateral areas along the dorsal, action related stream, as well as left infero-temporal areas along the ventral, object related stream are engaged in object recognition. Here we show that expertise modulates the activity of dorsal areas in the recognition of man-made objects with clearly specified functions. Expert chess players were faster than chess novices in identifying chess objects and their functional relations. Experts' advantage was domain-specific as there were no differences between groups in a control task featuring geometrical shapes. The pattern of eye movements supported the notion that experts' extensive knowledge about domain objects and their functions enabled superior recognition even when experts were not directly fixating the objects of interest. Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) related exclusively the areas along the dorsal stream to chess specific object recognition. Besides the commonly involved left temporal and parietal lateral brain areas, we found that only in experts homologous areas on the right hemisphere were also engaged in chess specific object recognition. Based on these results, we discuss whether skilled object recognition does not only involve a more efficient version of the processes found in non-skilled recognition, but also qualitatively different cognitive processes which engage additional brain areas.

Testing the Limits of Skill Transfer for Scrabble Experts in Behavior and Brain

“…Specifically, regions engaged by Scrabble experts in the SDT were more widespread, including extensive activity in posterior visual regions, as well as temporal and parietal language regions and their right hemisphere homologs. These results align with the expertise literature, with respect to recruitment of additional regions as well as greater bilateral activity in expert groups (Bilalić et al, 2011, 2012; Guida et al, 2012; Proverbio et al, 2013). In contrast, the control group engaged fewer regions, with activity found predominantly in temporal and frontal regions.…”

“…It is possible that reduced activity compared to controls may be associated with increased task efficiency in the Scrabble experts, in line with the intelligence literature (e.g., Haier et al, 1992; Jausovec and Jausovec, 2004). However, previous studies in the expertise literature suggest that functional reorganization and greater bilateral activity underlies expert performance (e.g., Bilalić et al, 2011, 2012; Guida et al, 2012; Proverbio et al, 2013). Thus, evidence for far transfer in the current study may include greater activity in bilateral visual-perceptual and long-term working memory regions for Scrabble experts compared to controls during the SDT.…”

The temporo-parietal junction contributes to global gestalt perception—evidence from studies in chess experts

“…Research in chess experts provided a large body of data addressing neuronal correlates of visual skills (Bilalić et al, 2010, 2011a,b, 2012; Krawczyk et al, 2011). For research on object recognition and visual integration chess appears to be particularly suitable as it features various, clearly distinguishable individual objects that allow the composition of complex stimulus configurations with graded complexity.…”

“…A typical chess position featuring numerous individual objects represents a single meaningful unit to chess experts. In a recent series of fMRI studies, Bilalić et al (2010, 2011a,b, 2012) demonstrated that chess experts also showed different neuronal response patterns in the ventral visual system compared to novices. Typically, chess experts showed higher signal increases mostly in the temporal lobe compared to novices during the observation of chess stimuli.…”

“…Behavioral experiments in chess experts suggested that their superior skills in comparison to chess novices are partly based on fast holistic processing of chess positions with multiple pieces. We thus analyzed BOLD data from four fMRI studies that compared chess experts with chess novices during the presentation of complex chess-related visual stimuli (Bilalić et al, 2010, 2011a,b, 2012). Three regions of interests were defined by significant TPJ clusters in the abovementioned study of global gestalt perception (Huberle and Karnath, 2012) and BOLD signal amplitudes in these regions were compared between chess experts and novices.…”