Alfonso Caramazza

• Harvard University

Understanding the goal of an observed action requires computing representations that are invariant to specific instantiations of the action. For example, we can accurately infer the goal of an action even when the agent’s desired outcome is not achieved. Observing actions consistently recruits a set of frontoparietal and posterior temporal regions,...

Language processing involves similar brain regions across languages and cultures. Intriguingly, one population escapes this universal pattern: in blind individuals, linguistic stimuli activate not only canonical language networks, but also the “visual” cortex. Theoretical implications of this finding are debated, particularly because it is unclear...

How does the brain represent information about motion events in relation to agentive and physical forces? In this study, we investigated the neural activity patterns associated with observing animated actions of agents (e.g., an agent hitting a chair) in comparison to similar movements of inanimate objects that were either shaped solely by the phys...

Understanding the goal of an observed action requires computing representations that are invariant to specific instantiations of the action. For example, we can accurately infer the goal of an action even when the agent's desired outcome is not achieved. Observing actions consistently recruits a set of frontoparietal and posterior temporal regions,...

Observing other people acting activates imitative motor plans in the observer. Whether, and if so when and how, such “effector-specific motor simulation” contributes to action recognition remains unclear. We report that individuals born without upper limbs (IDs) – who cannot covertly imitate upper limb movements – are significantly less accurate at...

In this response paper, we start by addressing the main points made by the commentators on the target article's main theoretical conclusions: the existence and characteristics of the intermediate shape-centered representations (ISCRs) in the visual system, their emergence from edge detection mechanisms operating on different types of visual propert...

How does the brain represent information about motion events in relation to agentive and physical forces? In this study, we investigated the neural activity patterns associated with observing animated actions of agents (e.g., an agent hitting a chair) in comparison to similar movements of inanimate objects that were either shaped solely by the phys...

Observing others’ actions recruits frontoparietal and posterior temporal brain regions – also called the action observation network. It is typically assumed that these regions support recognizing actions of animate entities (e.g., person jumping over a box). However, objects can also participate in events with rich meaning and structure (e.g., ball...

Human visual experience of objects comprises a combination of different visual features, such as their color, position, and shape. Spatial attention is thought to play a role in creating a coherent perceptual experience, integrating visual information coming from a given location, but the mechanisms underlying this process are not entirely understo...

Observing others' actions recruits frontoparietal and posterior temporal brain regions - also called the action observation network. It is typically assumed that these regions support recognizing actions of animate entities (e.g., person jumping over a box). However, objects can also participate in events with rich meaning and structure (e.g., ball...

In high-level visual areas in the human brain, preference for inanimate objects is observed regardless of stimulation modality (visual/auditory/tactile) and individual’s visual experience (sighted/blind) whereas preference for animate entities seems robust mainly in the visual modality. Here, we test a hypothesis explaining this domain difference:...

Although a great deal is known about the early sensory and the later, perceptual, stages of visual processing, far less is known about the nature of intermediate representational units and reference frames. Progress in understanding intermediate levels of representations in vision is hindered by the complexity and interactions between multiple leve...

The ventral visual stream is conceived as a pathway for object recognition. However, we also recognize the actions an object can be involved in. Here, we show that action recognition critically depends on a pathway in lateral occipitotemporal cortex, partially overlapping and topographically aligned with object representations that are precursors f...

Albert Costa was a dear friend and colleague who died young but accomplished much. We provide a brief sketch of his scientific contributions to the field of psycholinguistics and bilingualism. The articles included in the special issue are then presented along three research topics developed by Albert Costa in his own career: Lexical access in bili...

We report the study of a woman who perceives 2D bounded regions of space (“shapes”) defined by sharp edges of medium to high contrast as if they were rotated by 90, 180 degrees around their centre, mirrored across their own axes, or both. In contrast, her perception of 3D, strongly blurred or very low contrast shapes, and of stimuli emerging from a...

Whether a cognitive advantage exists for bilingual individuals has been the source of heated debate in the last decade. While empirical evidence putatively in favor or against this alleged advantage has been frequently discussed, the potential sources of enhanced cognitive control in bilinguals have only been broadly declared, with no mechanistic e...

In human occipitotemporal cortex, brain responses to depicted inanimate objects have a large-scale organization by real-world object size. Critically, the size of objects in the world is systematically related to behaviorally-relevant properties: small objects are often grasped and manipulated (e.g., forks), while large objects tend to be less moto...

All it takes is a face-to-face conversation in a noisy environment to realize that viewing a speaker's lip movements contributes to speech comprehension. What are the processes underlying the perception and interpretation of visual speech? Brain areas that control speech production are also recruited during lipreading. This finding raises the possi...

The ventral visual stream is conceived as a pathway for object recognition. However, we also recognize the actions an object can be involved in. Here, we show that action recognition relies on a pathway in lateral occipitotemporal cortex, partially overlapping and topographically aligned with object representations that are precursors for action re...

The primary goal of research on the functional and neural architecture of bilingualism is to elucidate how bilingual individuals' language architecture is organized such that they can both speak in a single language without accidental insertions of the other, but also flexibly switch between their two languages if the context allows/demands them to...

In human occipitotemporal cortex, brain responses to depicted inanimate objects have a large-scale organization by real-world object size. Critically, the size of objects in the world is systematically related to behaviorally-relevant properties: small objects are often grasped and manipulated (e.g., forks), while large objects tend to be less moto...

Significance What are the principles of brain organization? In the motor domain, separate pathways were found for reaching and grasping actions performed by the hand. To what extent is this organization specific to the hand or based on abstract action types, regardless of which body part performs them? We tested people born without hands who perfor...

In high-level visual shape areas in the human brain, preference for inanimate objects is observed regardless of stimulation modality (visual/auditory/tactile) and subjects' visual experience (sighted/blind individuals), whereas preference for animate entities seems robust only in the visual modality. Here, we test a hypothesis explaining this effec...

All it takes is a face to face conversation in a noisy environment to realize that viewing a speaker's lip movements contributes to speech comprehension. Following the finding that brain areas that control speech production are also recruited during lip reading, the received explanation is that lipreading operates through a covert unconscious imita...

The primary visual cortex represents the retinotopic orientation of visual primitives (edges, blobs, bars), but our conscious perception is of orientated objects (e.g., dogs, forks) in the environment. How this transformation operates remains unknown. We report here the study of a young woman presenting with an extraordinarily clear and informative...

The sixth edition of the foundational reference on cognitive neuroscience, with entirely new material that covers the latest research, experimental approaches, and measurement methodologies. Each edition of this classic reference has proved to be a benchmark in the developing field of cognitive neuroscience. The sixth edition of The Cognitive Neuro...

What mechanisms underlie facial expression recognition? A popular hypothesis holds that efficient facial expression recognition cannot be achieved by visual analysis alone but additionally requires a mechanism of motor simulation — an unconscious, covert imitation of the observed facial postures and movements. Here, we first discuss why this hypoth...

What mechanisms underlie facial expression recognition? A popular hypothesis holds that efficient facial expression recognition cannot be achieved by visual analysis alone but additionally requires a mechanism of motor simulation — an unconscious, covert imitation of the observed facial postures and movements. Here, we first discuss why this hypoth...

What mechanisms underlie facial expression recognition? A popular hypothesis holds that efficient facial expression recognition cannot be achieved by visual analysis alone but additionally requires a mechanism of motor simulation — an unconscious, covert imitation of the observed facial postures and movements. Here, we first discuss why this hypoth...

Sensory experience shapes what and how knowledge is stored in the brain—our knowledge about the color of roses depends in part on the activity of color-responsive neurons based on experiences of seeing roses. We compared the brain basis of color knowledge in congenitally (or early) blind individuals, whose color knowledge can only be obtained throu...

Reading an action verb activates its corresponding motor representation in the reader’s motor cortex, but whether this activation is relevant for comprehension remains unclear. To quantify the contribution of motor representations to the conceptual processing of action verbs, we measured the efficiency of two participants with atypical motor experi...

Neuroimaging studies suggest that areas in the lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) play an important role in the perception of social actions. However, it is unclear what precisely about social actions these areas represent: perceptual features that may be indicative of social actions - such as the presence of persons in a scene, their orientati...

Neuroimaging studies suggest that areas in the lateral occipitotemporal cortex (LOTC) play an important role in the perception of social actions. However, it is unclear what precisely about social actions these areas represent: perceptual features that may be indicative of social actions - such as the presence of persons in a scene, their orientati...

Object identification and enumeration rely on the ability to distinguish, or individuate, objects from the background. Does multiple object individuation operate only over bounded, separable objects or does it operate equally over connected features within a single object? While previous fMRI experiments suggest that connectedness affects the proce...

Object identification and enumeration rely on the ability to distinguish, or individuate, objects from the background. Does multiple object individuation operate only over bounded, separable objects or does it operate equally over connected features within a single object? While previous fMRI experiments suggest that connectedness affects the proce...

Sensory experience shapes what and how knowledge is stored in the brain -- our knowledge about the color of roses depends in part on the activity of color-responsive neurons based on experiences of seeing roses. We study the brain basis of color knowledge in congenitally blind individuals whose color knowledge can only be obtained through language...

A network of frontal and parietal regions is known to be recruited during the planning and execution of arm and eye movements. While movements of the two effectors are typically coupled with each other, it remains unresolved how information is shared between them. Here we aimed to identify regions containing neuronal populations that show direction...

Both temporal and frontoparietal brain areas are associated with the representation of knowledge about the world, in particular about actions. However, what these brain regions represent and precisely how they differ remains unknown. Here, we reveal distinct functional profiles of lateral temporal and frontoparietal cortex using fMRI-based MVPA. Fr...

Both temporal and frontoparietal brain areas are associated with the representation of knowledge about the world, in particular about actions. However, what these brain regions represent and precisely how they differ remains unknown. Here, we reveal distinct functional profiles of lateral temporal and frontoparietal cortex using fMRI-based MVPA. Fr...

How do we represent information without sensory features? How are abstract concepts like “freedom”, devoid of external perceptible referents, represented in the brain? Here, to address the role of sensory information in the neural representation of concepts, we used fMRI to investigate how people born blind process concepts whose referents are impe...

The human high-level visual cortex comprises regions specialized for the processing of distinct types of stimuli, such as objects, animals, and human actions. How does this specialization emerge? Here, we investigated the role of effector-specific visuomotor coupling experience in shaping the organization of the action observation network (AON) as...

Significance What determines the role of brain regions and their plasticity when typical inputs or experience is not provided? To what extent can extreme compensatory use affect brain organization? We tested the reorganization of primary and association sensorimotor cortex hand-selective areas in people born without hands, who use their feet for ev...

Understanding other people's actions and mental states includes the interpretation of body postures and movements. In particular, hand postures are an important channel to signal both action and communicative intentions. Recognizing hand postures is computationally challenging because hand postures often differ only in the subtle configuration of r...

The human high-level visual cortex comprises regions specialized for the processing of distinct types of stimuli, such as objects, animals, and human actions. How does this specialization emerge? Here, we investigated the role of sensorimotor experience in shaping the organization of the action observation network as a window on this question. Obse...

How do we represent information that has no sensory features? How are abstract concepts like "freedom", devoid of external perceptible referents, represented in the brain? To address the role of sensory information in the neural representation of concepts, we investigated how people born blind process concepts whose referents are imperceptible to t...

When we perform a cognitive task, multiple brain regions are engaged. Understanding how these regions interact is a fundamental step to uncover the neural bases of behavior. Most research on the interactions between brain regions has focused on the univariate responses in the regions. However, fine grained patterns of response encode important info...

Functional connectivity (blue) and MVPD (yellow) with the FFA thresholded at FWE p < 0.05 with SnPM after regressing out additional nuisance parameters: 6 movement parameters and the global signal. (TIFF)

MVPD with the FFA after removing both the additional nuisance parameters and the univariate signal, thresholded at FWE p < 0.05 with SnPM. (TIFF)

Voxelwise variance explained by MVPD (thresholded at 10%) after regressing out additional nuisance parameters: 6 movement parameters and the global signal. (TIFF)

Experiment 1: Peaks of MVPD with the pSTS seed. (PDF)

Experiment 1: Peaks of functional connectivity with the pSTS seed. (PDF)

Experiment 2: Peaks of MVPD with the FFA seed. (PDF)

Stimuli for Experiment 2. (TIFF)

Experiment 2: Peaks of functional connectivity with the FFA seed. (PDF)

How do humans recognize humans among other creatures? Recent studies suggest that a preference for conspecifics may emerge already in perceptual processing, in regions such as the right posterior superior temporal sulcus (pSTS), implicated in visual perception of biological motion. In the current functional MRI study, participants viewed point-ligh...

What forces direct brain organization and its plasticity? When a brain region is deprived of its input would this region reorganize based on compensation for the disability and experience, or would strong limitations of brain structure limit its plasticity? People born without hands activate their sensorimotor hand region while moving body parts us...

When we perform a cognitive task, multiple brain regions are engaged. Understanding how these regions interact is a fundamental step to uncover the neural bases of behavior. Most research on the interactions between brain regions has focused on the univariate responses in the regions. However, fine grained patterns of response encode important info...

In the study of connectivity in large-scale networks of brain regions, a standard assumption is made that the statistical dependence between regions is univariate and linear. However, brain regions encode information in multivariate responses, and neural computations are nonlinear. Multivariate and nonlinear statistical dependence between regions i...

The study of acquired language deficits can have one or more of a variety of research goals, but one that is most easily motivated is the use of the observed patterns of impairment (along with other sources of evidence) to motivate particular theories of the normal system. Given certain reasonable assump tions about the consequences of damage to th...

Significance To what extent is brain organization driven by innate genetic constraints, and how dependent is it on individual experience during early development? We show that an area of the visual system that processes both hands and tools can develop without sensorimotor experience in manipulating tools with one’s hands. People born without hands...

Face recognition is thought to rely on specific mechanisms underlying a perceptual bias toward processing faces as undecomposable wholes. This face-specific "holistic processing" is commonly quantified using 3 measures: the inversion, part-whole, and composite effects. Consequently, many researchers assume that these 3 effects measure the same cogn...

Human ventral occipital temporal cortex contains clusters of neurons that show domain-preferring responses during visual perception. Recent studies have reported that some of these clusters show surprisingly similar domain selectivity in congenitally blind participants performing nonvisual tasks.Animportant open question is whether these functional...

Recognizing the identity of a person is fundamental to guide social interactions. We can recognize the identity of a person looking at her face, but also listening to her voice. An important question concerns how visual and auditory information come together, enabling us to recognize identity independently of the modality of the stimulus. This stud...

The present experiment identified neural regions that represent a class of concepts that are independent of perceptual or sensory attributes. During functional magnetic resonance imaging scanning, participants viewed names of social groups (e.g. Atheists, Evangelicals, and Economists) and performed a one-back similarity judgment according to 1 of 2...

How neural specificity for distinct conceptual knowledge categories arises is central for understanding the organization of semantic memory in the human brain. Although there is a large body of research on the neural processing of distinct object categories, the organization of action categories remains largely unknown. In particular, it is unknown...