Sarah Khatkhatay, SK Somaiya Vidhyadhar
A mind, a soul, and a spirit. Within our bodies, a central role is played by the nervous system from receiving information from the sensory organs to controlling muscle movement. But, what is a mind, its nature, and what role does it play? Most of us believe that the mind is a phenomenon produced by the working of the nervous system. If we understand the working of the human body, in particular the human nervous system, we will be able to explain the reason behind our perceptions, our thoughts, our memories, and our actions.
Co-occurrence:
When we see any individual object, our brain automatically connects it with other things it naturally occurs with. This allows humans to build context for their surroundings and set expectations for the world. Some objects occupy their natural place in the world. It is like a setting in which these objects typically encounter their co-occurring objects. For example, when we see a refrigerator, we think as if we are looking at a refrigerator, however our mind associates other things related to the refrigerator.
This type of phenomenon helps people identify their surroundings and generate expectations for the other objects they might encounter. An attempt to measure the extent of the co-occurrence phenomenon and the brain region involved with the same was done by using machine learning and brain imaging. A corresponding author Mick Bonner said that this was the first time anyone has quantified and identified the brain regions where the phenomenon takes place.
Two-part study:
Bonnar, along with Russell Epstein used a database with thousands of scenic photos with every labeled object. The pictures were of household scenes, city life, and nature with labels for every mug, car, or object. To measure the object co-occurrence, a statistical model and algorithm were created which demonstrated the likelihood of seeing a pen when you saw a keyboard or seeing a mug if you saw a tea kettle. The next attempt after finding the quantification was to map the brain region that handles the link. The brain activity of the subjects was monitored with functional magnetic resonance imaging or fMRI. The team showed them pictures of individual objects and searched for evidence of a region whose responses tracked this co-occurrence information. They identified a spot in the visual cortex commonly linked to the processing of spatial scenes.
The visual cortex of the brain:
80 percent or more of the information our brains process is visual. The visual cortex of the brain is a part of the cerebral cortex and as the name suggests it processes visual information. It is located in the occipital lobe and the sensory input originating from the eyes travels through the thalamus and reaches the visual cortex. Here, the information is received, segmented and integrated. Bonnar said, when you see a plane, the visual cortex signals sky and clouds and other things associated with the plane. This region of the brain processes the spatial environment and codes information about how things go together in the world.
Significance of the study:
Researchers have long known that people are slow in recognizing objects out of context. The team claims this to be the first large-scale experiment that quantifies the relation between objects in the visual environment. It is also the first study that shows how the visual context is represented in the visual cortex of the brain. Bonnar said the team shows that the brain seems to represent this rich statistical information in a fine-grained manner.
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Reference:
- Bonner, Michael F., and Russell A. Epstein. “Object Representations in the Human Brain Reflect the Co-Occurrence Statistics of Vision and Language.” Nature Communications, vol. 12, no. 1, July 2021, p.4081.www.nature.com. doi:10.1038/s41467-021-24368-2. Accessed 16 July 2021.
- ORIGINS OF PHYSIOLOGICAL PSYCHOLOGY. https://www.albany.edu/faculty/cafrye/apsy601/Ch.01Feb1,HistoryofBiopsych.html. Accessed 16 July 2021.
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