美国波士顿学院和宾州大学的科学家发现了一种人大脑运转及识别周围环境的新方式。相关研究发表在近期的《自然—神经科学》杂志上。
研究人员要求被试者分别看两组照片：一组是四种场景（厨房、浴室、道路交叉口和游乐场），另一种是上述场景中的个别物体（冰箱、浴缸、汽车和滑坡）；之后对被试者大脑进行功能性磁共振成像扫描。
研究人员发现，被试者能够利用由个别物体产生的大脑模式来辨认由场景产生的大脑模式，并且能够及时说出场景的类型。
该研究领导者肖恩·麦克沃伊（Sean MacEvoy）表示，该研究揭示了一个大脑利用物体信息来辨别位置的新系统，有助于研发治疗大脑创伤的方法。
生物探索推荐英文论文摘要：
Constructing scenes from objects in human occipitotemporal cortex
We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to demonstrate the existence of a mechanism in the human lateral occipital (LO) cortex that supports recognition of real-world visual scenes through parallel analysis of within-scene objects. Neural activity was recorded while subjects viewed four categories of scenes and eight categories of 'signature' objects strongly associated with the scenes in three experiments. Multivoxel patterns evoked by scenes in the LO cortex were well predicted by the average of the patterns elicited by their signature objects. By contrast, there was no relationship between scene and object patterns in the parahippocampal place area (PPA), even though this region responds strongly to scenes and is believed to be crucial for scene identification. By combining information about multiple objects within a scene, the LO cortex may support an object-based channel for scene recognition that complements the processing of global scene properties in the PPA.
