Parsing rooms: the role of the PPA and RSC in perceiving object relations and spatial layout

Merim Bilalić,Luca Turella,Tobias Lindig

doi:10.1007/s00429-019-01901-0

Merim Bilalić, Luca Turella + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s00429-019-01901-0

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Abstract

The perception of a scene involves grasping the global space of the scene, usually called the spatial layout, as well as the objects in the scene and the relations between them. The main brain areas involved in scene perception, the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and retrosplenial cortex (RSC), are supposed to mostly support the processing of spatial layout. Here we manipulated the objects and their relations either by arranging objects within rooms in a common way or by scattering them randomly. The rooms were then varied for spatial layout by keeping or removing the walls of the room, a typical layout manipulation. We then combined a visual search paradigm, where participants actively search for an object within the room, with multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA). Both left and right PPA were sensitive to the layout properties, but the right PPA was also sensitive to the object relations even when the information about objects and their relations is used in the cross-categorization procedure on novel stimuli. The left and right RSC were sensitive to both spatial layout and object relations, but could only use the information about object relations for cross-categorization to novel stimuli. These effects were restricted to the PPA and RSC, as other control brain areas did not display the same pattern of results. Our results underline the importance of employing paradigms that require participants to explicitly retrieve domain-specific processes and indicate that objects and their relations are processed in the scene areas to a larger extent than previously assumed.

Highlights

Using multivariate pattern analysis (MVPA), we demonstrate that the parahippocampal place area (PPA) and retrosplenial cortex (RSC) differ in their sensitivity to the relations between objects in a room and to the room’s spatial layout
Our main goal was to test whether the scene-related brain regions, the PPA and RSC are sensitive to the relations between objects, as well as to the layout of the scene
The left and right RSC, in contrast, were sensitive to both layout and object factors, which was already apparent in the univariate analysis

Summary

Introduction

The objects in the scene, such as the table, sofa, chairs, and their arrangement will inevitably give away that the scene most likely depicts a room, and a living room. This example illustrates that scenes can be recognized and categorized by both the global shape of the space, usually referred as the global or Current theories of scene perception (Oliva and Torralba 2001; Torralba et al 2006; Wolfe et al 2011) assume that the initial quick impression based on the perception of. It is fairly safe to say that both factors play important roles in scene perception (Malcolm et al 2016)

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