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

Merim Bilalić,Carsten Pohl,Andrea Kiesel,Michael Erb,Wolfgang Grodd,Jan Lauwereyns

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0016202

Merim Bilalić, Carsten Pohl + Show 4 more

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0016202

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Journal: PloS one	Publication Date: Jan 24, 2011
Citations: 105	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Tübingen, University of Würzburg

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.

Highlights

Our object recognition abilities, a direct product of our experience with objects, are fine-tuned to perfection – we need just a split of a second to recognize an everyday object and its function [1]
Comparing the Functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) data of players on the chess tasks (Check and Identity) and the Control task we found a network of brain areas responsible for the recognition of chess objects and their functions
Our expertise approach combined with concurrent application of behavioral and neuroimaging techniques enabled us to uncover cognitive and neural mechanisms underlying skilled object recognition

Summary

Introduction

A direct product of our experience with objects, are fine-tuned to perfection – we need just a split of a second to recognize an everyday object and its function [1]. A dedicated network of left lateralized areas along the ventral and dorsal visual streams has been associated with this amazing feat [2,3] It is less clear, whether and how this network enables skilled recognition as found among experts who have extensive experience with domain-specific objects and their functions. This is the case with man-made manipulable objects such as saw or hammer, whose visual features are directly related to their function These functions are closely coupled to actions which are inevitably associated with movements. The posterior middle temporal gyrus (pMTG) at the left lateral side is activated when people name visually or acoustically presented everyday objects, and when they have to retrieve their function [6,10,11]. The SMG is activated when people are explicitly instructed to retrieve a function-related action with an object [12,13] and its activation is modulated by actual execution of an action [14,15]

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