TY - JOUR
T1 - Extensive childhood experience with Pokémon suggests eccentricity drives organization of visual cortex
AU - Gomez, Jesse
AU - Barnett, Michael
AU - Grill-Spector, Kalanit
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award grant no. F31EY027201 to J.G., NIH grant nos. 1ROI1EY02231801A1 and 2RO1EY022318-06 to K.G.-S. and a seed grant awarded to J.G. by the Stanford University Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging. We thank A. Urai for her Matlab plotting toolbox. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2019, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Limited.
PY - 2019/6/1
Y1 - 2019/6/1
N2 - The functional organization of human high-level visual cortex, such as the face- and place-selective regions, is strikingly consistent across individuals. An unanswered question in neuroscience concerns which dimensions of visual information constrain the development and topography of this shared brain organization. To answer this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan a unique group of adults who, as children, had extensive visual experience with Pokémon. These animal-like, pixelated characters are dissimilar from other ecological categories, such as faces and places, along critical dimensions (foveal bias, rectilinearity, size, animacy). We show not only that adults who have Pokémon experience demonstrate distinct distributed cortical responses to Pokémon, but also that the experienced retinal eccentricity during childhood can predict the locus of Pokémon responses in adulthood. These data demonstrate that inherent functional representations in the visual cortex—retinal eccentricity—combined with consistent viewing behaviour of particular stimuli during childhood result in a shared functional topography in adulthood.
AB - The functional organization of human high-level visual cortex, such as the face- and place-selective regions, is strikingly consistent across individuals. An unanswered question in neuroscience concerns which dimensions of visual information constrain the development and topography of this shared brain organization. To answer this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan a unique group of adults who, as children, had extensive visual experience with Pokémon. These animal-like, pixelated characters are dissimilar from other ecological categories, such as faces and places, along critical dimensions (foveal bias, rectilinearity, size, animacy). We show not only that adults who have Pokémon experience demonstrate distinct distributed cortical responses to Pokémon, but also that the experienced retinal eccentricity during childhood can predict the locus of Pokémon responses in adulthood. These data demonstrate that inherent functional representations in the visual cortex—retinal eccentricity—combined with consistent viewing behaviour of particular stimuli during childhood result in a shared functional topography in adulthood.
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U2 - 10.1038/s41562-019-0592-8
DO - 10.1038/s41562-019-0592-8
M3 - Article
C2 - 31061489
AN - SCOPUS:85065332113
VL - 3
SP - 611
EP - 624
JO - Nature Human Behaviour
JF - Nature Human Behaviour
SN - 2397-3374
IS - 6
ER -