Visual category-driven differences in memory

Abstract

Categorizing classes of stimuli in the real-world is thought to underlie features of general intelligence, including our ability to infer identities of new objects, environments, and people never encountered before. Our understanding of human categorization, and the neural mechanisms that underlie this ability, was initially described in the context of visual perception. It is now broadly accepted that a network of high-level visual areas on the ventral and lateral surfaces of the brain exhibit some level of 'domain (or category)-selective' activity: preferential neural responses to visual stimuli of one category more than another (e.g., larger responses to faces compared to scenes or manipulable objects). Inspired by this robust and intuitive organization, recent studies have begun investigating the extent to which human memory systems also exhibit a category-selective organization. Surprisingly, this work has revealed strong evidence for the existence of category-selective areas in swaths of cortex previously considered to be domain-general. These results suggest that category-selectivity is a general organizing principle not only of visual cortex, but also for higher-level cortical areas involved in memory. In this chapter we review the evidence for the manifestation of visual category preferences in memory systems, and how this relates to the well-established categoryselectivity exhibited within visual cortex.

Effects of age on neural reinstatement during memory retrieval

“…The findings reported by Srokova et al (2022) lead to a somewhat similar conclusion to that of Deng et al (2021). The study, which took the form of further analysis of the data reported by Hill et al (2021; see also Srokova et al, 2020), was motivated by prior evidence of systematic differences in the localization of encoding-and retrieval-related content-selective cortical activity, a phenomenon which had previously been examined in healthy younger adults only (Bainbridge et al, 2021;Steel et al, 2022). Specifically, mental imagery and retrieval of visual stimuli (such as scenes) has been reported to be associated with neural activity that peaks slightly anterior to the peak of the activity elicited during direct perception of the same items.…”

Effects of age on neural reinstatement during memory retrieval

“…The findings reported by Srokova et al (2022) lead to a somewhat similar conclusion to that of Deng et al (2021). The study, which took the form of further analysis of the data reported by Hill et al (2021; see also Srokova et al, 2020), was motivated by prior evidence of systematic differences in the localization of encoding-and retrieval-related content-selective cortical activity, a phenomenon which had previously been examined in healthy younger adults only (Bainbridge et al, 2021;Steel et al, 2022). Specifically, mental imagery and retrieval of visual stimuli (such as scenes) has been reported to be associated with neural activity that peaks slightly anterior to the peak of the activity elicited during direct perception of the same items.…”

“…Specifically, mental imagery and retrieval of visual stimuli (such as scenes) has been reported to be associated with neural activity that peaks slightly anterior to the peak of the activity elicited during direct perception of the same items. This retrieval-related bias toward more anterior neural recruitment has been termed the 'anterior shift' (Bainbridge et al, 2021;Rugg and Thompson-Schill, 2013; see also Steel 2022). Because the posterior-anterior axis of occipitotemporal cortex forms a gradient of increasing abstraction (Kravitz et al, 2013), the anterior shift might reflect a weighting in favor of representations that emphasize conceptual attributes of a stimulus event at the expense of its perceptual and sensory features.…”

Interaction of Perception and Memory

“…Additional studies have also found that a separate region, the amygdala, may play a role in face memory (e.g., Kleinhans et al, 2007). Therefore, it seems that there may not only be category-selective perceptual areas, but also category-selective memory areas, and that the perceptual areas may even drive the emergence of the memory ones (Steel & Silson, 2022). In fact, evidence suggests there may even be memory regions in the brain that contain information specific to a single image.…”