2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience

13-16 September 2019    Berlin, Germany

Technical Program

Paper Detail

Paper: PS-2B.17
Session: Poster Session 2B
Location: H Fläche 1.OG
Session Time: Sunday, September 15, 17:15 - 20:15
Presentation Time:Sunday, September 15, 17:15 - 20:15
Presentation: Poster
Publication: 2019 Conference on Cognitive Computational Neuroscience, 13-16 September 2019, Berlin, Germany
Paper Title: Formalizing a Perceptual-Mnemonic Theory of the Medial Temporal Lobe
Manuscript:  Click here to view manuscript
License: Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.32470/CCN.2019.1386-0
Authors: Tyler Bonnen, Daniel L. K. Yamins, Anthony D. Wagner, Stanford University, United States
Abstract: Animals rapidly transform sensory experience into memory. How the mammalian brain supports these transformations has been subject to an enduring debate: Do medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures, typically implicated in memory-related behaviors, also play a role in perception? A rich experimental literature exists, yet reliance on descriptive accounts of stimulus properties (e.g. “feature ambiguity”) has made it difficult to synthesize results. In order to formalize perceptual demands on the MTL, in particular, the role of perirhinal cortex (PRC), here we adopt a combination of meta-analytic and computational approaches. We begin by designing a null model of PRC function in visual discrimination tasks, building from a computational proxy for the primate ventral visual system (VVS). With this model, we identify stimuli from previous studies that may not be diagnostic of PRC’s role in perception. We then demonstrate a striking correspondence between model and PRC-lesioned behavior across ten experiments (r=.80). Critically, the model and PRC-lesioned subjects fail on the same visual discrimination tasks, unlike controls. This approach formalizes the MTL’s role in perception by providing a tractable, stimulus-computable proxy for visual discrimination tasks in a PRC-lesioned state.