ArticleCortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior2016
The anterior temporal cortex is a primary semantic source of top-down influences on object recognition.
Article in Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior, 2016. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Anchoring the human olfactory system within a functional gradient.NeuroImage · 2020Pooled it
- Resolving the Abstract-Concrete Paradox in the Angular Gyrus: A Multimethod Investigation.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural oscillations and top-down connectivity are modulated by object-scene congruency.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2025Article
- Neural Distinction between Visual Word and Object Recognition: An fMRI Study Using Pictographs.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Effects of Competition on Left Prefrontal and Temporal Cortex During Conceptual Comparison of Brand-Name Product Pictures: Analysis of fNIRS Using Tensor Decomposition.Brain sciences · 2025Article
- Disruption of Anterior Temporal Lobe Reduces Distortions in Memory From Category Knowledge.Journal of cognitive neuroscience · 2023Article
- Recurrent connectivity supports higher-level visual and semantic object representations in the brain.Communications biology · 2023Article
- The fornix supports episodic memory during childhood.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2022Article
- The neurophysiological architecture of semantic dementia: spectral dynamic causal modelling of a neurodegenerative proteinopathy.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- The occipital face area is causally involved in identity-related visual-semantic associations.Brain structure & function · 2020Article
- The Effect of Object Type on Building Scene Imagery-an MEG Study.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2020Article
- Recent advances in understanding object recognition in the human brain: deep neural networks, temporal dynamics, and context.F1000Research · 2020Review
- Perirhinal circuits for memory processing.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2019Review
- Exploring the functional nature of synaesthetic colour: Dissociations from colour perception and imagery.Cognition · 2018Article
- Spared perception of object geometry and object components after hippocampal damage.Learning & memory (Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.) · 2018Article
- Controlled semantic cognition relies upon dynamic and flexible interactions between the executive 'semantic control' and hub-and-spoke 'semantic representation' systems.Cortex; a journal devoted to the study of the nervous system and behavior · 2018Article
- The anterior-ventrolateral temporal lobe contributes to boosting visual working memory capacity for items carrying semantic information.NeuroImage · 2018Article
- Left centro-parieto-temporal response to tool-gesture incongruity: an ERP study.Behavioral and brain functions : BBF · 2018Article
- Amygdala Represents Diverse Forms of Intangible Knowledge, That Illuminate Social Processing and Major Clinical Disorders.Frontiers in human neuroscience · 2018Article
- Left Anterior Temporal Lobe and Bilateral Anterior Cingulate Cortex Are Semantic Hub Regions: Evidence from Behavior-Nodal Degree Mapping in Brain-Damaged Patients.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors.
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Abstract
Perception emerges from a dynamic interplay between feed-forward sensory input and feedback modulation along the cascade of neural processing. Prior knowledge, a major form of top-down modulatory signal, benefits perception by enabling efficacious inference and resolving ambiguity, particularly under circumstances of degraded visual input. Despite semantic information being a potentially critical source of this top-down influence, to date, the core neural substrate of semantic knowledge (the anterolateral temporal lobe - ATL) has not been considered as a key component of the feedback system. Here we provide direct evidence of its significance for visual cognition - the ATL underpins the semantic aspect of object recognition, amalgamating sensory-based (amount of accumulated sensory input) and semantic-based (representational proximity between exemplars and typicality of appearance) influences. Using transcranial theta-burst stimulation combined with a novel visual identification paradigm, we demonstrate that the left ATL contributes to discrimination between visual objects. Crucially, its contribution is especially vital under situations where semantic knowledge is most needed for supplementing deficiency of input (brief visual exposure), discerning analogously-coded exemplars (close representational distance), and resolving discordance (target appearance violating the statistical typicality of its category). Our findings characterise functional properties of the ATL in object recognition: this neural structure is summoned to augment the visual system when the latter is overtaxed by challenging conditions (insufficient input, overlapped neural coding, and conflict between incoming signal and expected configuration). This suggests a need to revisit current theories of object recognition, incorporating the ATL that interfaces high-level vision with semantic knowledge.
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