Investigation into the Link between Object Perception and Neural Activity in the Human Brain Using ECoG Data

Abstract

One area under investigation in the field of neuroscience is the link between object perception and neural activity in visual cortical areas of the human brain. By investigating the electrical potentials from the ventral temporal cortical surface in humans, the Stanford University study selected for this paper sought to collect sufficient information for spontaneous and near-instantaneous identification of a subject’s perceptual state. The brain signal data collection technique used by the researchers was electrocorticography (ECoG), using ECoG arrays placed on the subtemporal cortical surface of seven epilepsy patients. ECoG is an invasive electrogram method, requiring access to the surface of the brain, which can be applied to measure brain signals in response to specific stimuli. Using publicly available human ECoG recording data previously collected and made publicly available, this paper investigates visual object processing in the human brain. The data are taken from a study where seven epilepsy patients were shown house and face images in quick succession. We use those data and filter, process, and plot selected data to investigate the correct identification of the stimuli. We discovered that the incorrect stimuli matches are driven by variance in the human brain activity corresponding to the same set of stimuli. Better understanding of the visual processing capabilities of the human brain could lead to developments in machine learning, as well as generate recommendations for future data collection in human visual object processing.