Graspable foods and tools elicit similar responses in visual cortex

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Author(s)Ritchie, John Brendan
Author(s)Andrews, Spencer T.
Author(s)Vaziri-Pashkam, Maryam
Author(s)Baker, Chris I.
Date Accessioned2025-02-20T20:18:34Z
Date Available2025-02-20T20:18:34Z
Publication Date2024-09-25
DescriptionThis article was originally published in Cerebral Cortex Published by Oxford University Press 2024. The version of record is available at: https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae383. This work is written by (a) US Government employee(s) and is in the public domain in the US.
AbstractThe extrastriatal visual cortex is known to exhibit distinct response profiles to complex stimuli of varying ecological importance (e.g. faces, scenes, and tools). Although food is primarily distinguished from other objects by its edibility, not its appearance, recent evidence suggests that there is also food selectivity in human visual cortex. Food is also associated with a common behavior, eating, and food consumption typically also involves the manipulation of food, often with hands. In this context, food items share many properties with tools: they are graspable objects that we manipulate in self-directed and stereotyped forms of action. Thus, food items may be preferentially represented in extrastriatal visual cortex in part because of these shared affordance properties, rather than because they reflect a wholly distinct kind of category. We conducted functional MRI and behavioral experiments to test this hypothesis. We found that graspable food items and tools were judged to be similar in their action-related properties and that the location, magnitude, and patterns of neural responses for images of graspable food items were similar in profile to the responses for tool stimuli. Our findings suggest that food selectivity may reflect the behavioral affordances of food items rather than a distinct form of category selectivity.
SponsorThis research was supported by the Intramural Research Program of the National Institute of Mental Health (ZIAMH002909 to C.I.B.). Conflict of interest statement: None declared.
CitationJohn Brendan Ritchie, Spencer T Andrews, Maryam Vaziri-Pashkam, Chris I Baker, Graspable foods and tools elicit similar responses in visual cortex, Cerebral Cortex, Volume 34, Issue 9, September 2024, bhae383, https://doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhae383
ISSN1460-2199
URLhttps://udspace.udel.edu/handle/19716/35836
Languageen_US
PublisherCerebral Cortex
Keywordsfood
Keywordstools
Keywordsvisual cortex
Keywordscategory selectivity
Keywordsshape
TitleGraspable foods and tools elicit similar responses in visual cortex
TypeArticle
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