@article {7, title = {Unsupervised changes in core object recognition behavioral performance are accurately predicted by unsupervised neural plasticity in inferior temporal cortex}, journal = {BioRxiv}, year = {2020}, month = {01.2020}, type = {preprint}, abstract = {

Temporal continuity of object identity is a feature of natural visual input, and is potentially exploited -- in an unsupervised manner -- by the ventral visual stream to build the neural representation in inferior temporal (IT) cortex and IT-dependent core object recognition behavior. Here we investigated whether plasticity of individual IT neurons underlies human behavioral changes induced with unsupervised visual experience by building a single-neuron plasticity model combined with a previously established IT population-to-recognition-behavior linking model to predict human learning effects. We found that our model quite accurately predicted the mean direction, magnitude and time course of human performance changes. We also found a previously unreported dependency of the observed human performance change on the initial task difficulty. This result adds support to the hypothesis that tolerant core object recognition in human and non-human primates is instructed -- at least in part -- by naturally occurring unsupervised temporal contiguity experience.

}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.01.13.900837}, url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.01.13.900837v2.full.pdf}, author = {Xiaoxuan Jia and Ha Hong and James J. DiCarlo} }