Research Goal
The long-term goal of our research is to understand the neuronal basis of visual object recognition. We use single neuron recording in non-human primates engaged in object recognition tasks and Event Related Brain Potential recording (ERP) and psychophysical techniques in human and non-human primates to investigate the neural correlate of visual object recognition, concept formation and perceptual learning.
We have recently shown that injection of a small amount of electrical current into clusters of face neurons in inferotemporal (IT) cortex results in a shift in the monkey's choice in a face non-face discrimination task. Also we have discovered that animate object category structure is represented in the response patterns of IT neuronal population in monkey and human. Other findings from our lab show that IT neural response latency is used to code category information. We hope that our studies of the brain's object representation will contribute to a deeper understanding of the neuronal mechanisms that underlie cognition.
