Neural Representations Integrate the Current Field of View with the Remembered 360° Panorama in Scene-Selective Cortex

• Published in: Current biology Vol. 26; no. 18; pp. 2463 - 2468
• Main Authors: Robertson, Caroline E., Hermann, Katherine L., Mynick, Anna, Kravitz, Dwight J., Kanwisher, Nancy
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: England Elsevier Ltd 26-09-2016
• Subjects: Adult; Humans; Mental Recall; navigation; occipital place area (OPA); panoramic memory; parahippocampal place area (PPA); retrosplenial cortex (RSC); scene memory; scene perception; virtual reality; Visual Cortex; Visual Perception; Young Adult; panoramic memory; virtual reality; navigation; parahippocampal place area (PPA); scene memory; retrosplenial cortex (RSC); occipital place area (OPA); scene perception
• ISSN: 0960-9822; 1879-0445
• DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2016.07.002

We experience our visual environment as a seamless, immersive panorama. Yet, each view is discrete and fleeting, separated by expansive eye movements and discontinuous views of our spatial surroundings. How are discrete views of a panoramic environment knit together into a broad, unified memory representation? Regions of the brain’s “scene network” are well poised to integrate retinal input and memory [1]: they are visually driven [2, 3] but also densely interconnected with memory structures in the medial temporal lobe [4]. Further, these regions harbor memory signals relevant for navigation [5–8] and adapt across overlapping shifts in scene viewpoint [9, 10]. However, it is unknown whether regions of the scene network support visual memory for the panoramic environment outside of the current field of view and, further, how memory for the surrounding environment influences ongoing perception. Here, we demonstrate that specific regions of the scene network—the retrosplenial complex (RSC) and occipital place area (OPA)—unite discrete views of a 360° panoramic environment, both current and out of sight, in a common representational space. Further, individual scene views prime associated representations of the panoramic environment in behavior, facilitating subsequent perceptual judgments. We propose that this dynamic interplay between memory and perception plays an important role in weaving the fabric of continuous visual experience.
•Visual experience of a 360° panorama forges memory associations between scene views•Representations of discrete views of a 360° environment overlap in RSC and OPA•The scene currently in view primes associated views of the 360° environment
How is panoramic visual memory formed in the brain? Robertson et al. report that specific regions of the brain—the RSC and OPA—integrate discrete views of a 360° environment. Subsequently, the scene in the current field of view implicitly triggers associated views of the panoramic environment, facilitating ongoing perception.