Humans are highly efficient in finding objects in their structured, daily-life environments. Behavioral studies have demonstrated that this efficiency is supported by expectations derived from scene context. Here, I review neuroimaging studies that have started to reveal the neural basis of contextual influences on visual search for objects. These studies point to a central role for the object-selective visual cortex (OSC) in mediating multiple types of contextual influences. Supporting the attentional guidance by scene context, activity patterns in the OSC reflect global contextual expectations about target location and represent local nontarget objects that are contextually associated with the target. Preparatory activity patterns in the OSC also incorporate contextual expectations about target appearance (e.g., object size) during the preparation phase of visual search. In addition to supporting attentional guidance, object representations in the OSC are directly facilitated by scene context, and this facilitation is causally linked to object-identification performance. Finally, activity patterns in the anterior OSC integrate representations of distractor objects that are positioned according to familiar configurations, thereby reducing scene complexity. Together, these studies show how attention and expectation interactively drive preparatory activity and jointly modulate the visual processing of potential targets, providing a neural basis for the efficiency of search in scenes.

中文翻译：

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场景上下文中视觉搜索的神经基础


人类在结构化的日常生活环境中寻找物体的效率很高。行为研究表明，这种效率得到了从场景上下文得出的期望的支持。在这里，我回顾了神经影像学研究，这些研究已经开始揭示环境影响对对象视觉搜索的神经基础。这些研究指出，对象选择性视觉皮层 （OSC） 在介导多种类型的环境影响中发挥着核心作用。OSC 中的活动模式支持场景上下文的注意力指导，反映了对目标位置的全局上下文期望，并表示与目标上下文相关的本地非目标对象。在视觉搜索的准备阶段，OSC 中的准备活动模式还结合了对目标外观（例如，对象大小）的上下文期望。除了支持注意力指导外，OSC 中的对象表示还由场景上下文直接促进，这种促进与对象识别性能有因果关系。最后，前 OSC 中的活动模式整合了根据熟悉的配置定位的干扰物对象的表示，从而降低了场景的复杂性。总之，这些研究展示了注意力和期望如何交互地驱动准备活动并共同调节潜在目标的视觉处理，为场景中的搜索效率提供了神经基础。