Adaptive visual representation in human posterior parietal cortex

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PROJECT SUMMARY Central to human cognition is the ability to interact adaptively with our visual environment by collecting and accumulating pertinent information to guide thoughts and behavior. Recent work has pinpointed the significant role of posterior parietal cortex (PPC) in supporting adaptive visual processing. Building upon two recent reviews on PPC and two sets of exciting preliminary findings on visual representation in human PPC involving attention and visual working memory (VWM), the present proposal aims to document the nature of visual processing in PPC with the same rigor and precision as those used to study visual representation in OTC. The overarching hypothesis here is that task-related factors play a more prominent role in shaping visual representation in PPC than OTC and the key to understand the intricate details of visual representation in PPC is through its interactions with task-related factors. Using fMRI pattern decoding and representational similarity analyses to document PPC representational structure in humans, the present proposal examines two fundamental aspects of adaptive visual processing: The contributions of attention and task to adaptive visual representation in PPC in Aim 1, and the nature of VWM representation in PPC in Aim 2. To understand the neural underpinnings of PPC visual processing, using voxel overlap analysis, in all the studies proposed, we will examine whether the same or distinct PPC neuronal populations contribute to different aspect of PPC visual processing. The proposed studies will provide for the first time an in-depth and systematic understanding of the nature of PPC visual representation in the human brain and its interaction with important task-related factors. They shall provide foundational knowledge regarding how adaptive visual processing is accomplished in the human brain.