The Responses of Cell Population in the Inferotemporal Cortex to Object Views with the Experience of Association Learning

Abstract

Object recognition requires discrimination across different objects in spite of the view change of the same object. In our previous experiment, single neurons of inferotemporal cortex responding to the training object sets that the monkeys had experienced in association between views of the objects across up to 90 deg in viewing angle responded with a viewing angle tuning curve width of about 60 deg. To reveal the neuronal mechanism underlying the association training, we analyzed the response patterns of cell population to the object images experienced in the object discrimination across up to 90 deg. We found that the similarities for response patterns of views of the same objects were significantly larger than that across different objects for viewing angle difference of 30 deg, 60 deg, and 90 deg. The results suggest that the object discrimination across large viewing angle could be explained by the neuronal activity of cell population in inferotemporal cortex.