Human visual object recognition: What have we learned from neuroimaging?

We review the neuroimaging literature for studies whose designs permit the identification of regions specialized for visual recognition. The results of these 17 studies are combined and analyzed with the goal of answering the following questions: (1) How well localized are areas involved in visual recognition across subjects? (2) Are there cortical areas that are specialized for the perception of different categories of stimuli (e.g., faces, words, and general objects)? The concept of specialization is defined and examined, as are the inferential limitations of neuroimaging methodology. Local maxima across studies were poorly colocalized within posterior inferior cortex, and there was no consistent segregation of activation sites dependent on the category of stimulus used. We discuss several possible reasons why the results of this review do not agree with the predictions of lesion and neurophysiology studies.