Speaker: Prof. Alfonso Caramazza，the Daniel and Amy Starch Professor of Psychology at Harvard University

Time: 13:00-14:30, Sept. 24, 2019

Venue: Room B101，Lui Che Woo Building

Abstract: We know different kinds of things about objects: their physical attributes, how they are used, their function, where they are likely to be found, their value, and their relation to other objects. What are the principles that guide the representation and organization of this knowledge in the brain? The different forms of object recognition deficit that result from brain damage suggest that both object domain, such as the animate–inanimate distinction, and attributes, such as shape, color, and function, serve as organizing principles of object knowledge. Neuroimaging results support the role of both domain and attributes in the organization of object knowledge as revealed, for example, by the preeminent role of domain in the large-scale organization of occipital-temporal cortex. Recent studies have further shown that this neural organization does not depend on ontogenetic visual or motor experience, drawing renewed attention to the respective roles of experience versus evolutionary pressures in determining such organization. I will propose that domain-specificity in one region of the brain emerges because of innate connectivity with a network of regions that are specialized in processing domain-distinctive information.

Host: Prof. Fang Fang

2019-09-19