Posterior inferotemporal cortex cells use multiple visual pathways to complement fine and coarse discriminations

ABSTRACT In the macaque monkey brain, posterior inferior temporal cortex (PIT) cells are responsible for visual object recognition. They receive concurrent inputs from visual areas V4, V3 and V2. We asked how these different anatomical pathways contribute to PIT response properties by deactivating them while monitoring PIT activity. Using cortical cooling of areas V2/V3 or V4 and a hierarchical model of visual recognition, we conclude that these distinct pathways do not transmit different classes of visual features, but serve instead to maintain a balance of local-and global-feature selectivity in IT.