%0 Journal Article %J Science %D 2008 %T Unsupervised Natural Experience Rapidly Alters Invariant Object Representation in Visual Cortex %A Li, Nuo %A DiCarlo, James J. %X

Object recognition is challenging because each object produces myriad retinal images. Responses of neurons from the inferior temporal cortex {(IT)} are selective to different objects, yet tolerant ("invariant") to changes in object position, scale, and pose. How does the brain construct this neuronal tolerance? We report a form of neuronal learning that suggests the underlying solution. Targeted alteration of the natural temporal contiguity of visual experience caused specific changes in {IT} position tolerance. This unsupervised temporal slowness learning {(UTL)} was substantial, increased with experience, and was significant in single {IT} neurons after just 1 hour. Together with previous theoretical work and human object perception experiments, we speculate that {UTL} may reflect the mechanism by which the visual stream builds and maintains tolerant object representations.

%B Science %V 321 %P 1502 - 1507 %8 12/2008 %G eng %U http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/321/5895/1502?ijkey=wb6T4x69JeSes&keytype=ref&siteid=sci %! Science %R 10.1126/science.1160028