Beyond the Edges of a View: Boundary Extension in Human Scene-Selective Visual Cortex

Abstract

To allow perception of a continuous world, cortical mechanisms extrapolate missing information with highly constrained predictions about the environment just beyond the edges of a view. Here, we report functional magnetic resonance imaging evidence for extrapolation of scene layout information beyond what was physically presented, an illusion known as boundary extension. Consistent with behavioral reports, we observed boundary extension for scene-selective attenuation in the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and retrosplenial cortex (RSC), but no such extrapolation of object representations in the lateral occipital complex (LOC). These results demonstrate that scene layout representations are extrapolated beyond the confines of the perceptual input. Such extrapolation may facilitate perception of a continuous world from discontinuous views.