CENTER FOR RESEARCH IN
COGNITION & NEUROSCIENCES/ConnexConnex

The primate brain processes incoming visual information in occipitotemporal “ventral stream” areas specialized in shape recognition, and occipitoparietal “dorsal stream” areas crucial for spatial vision and visuo-motor control. How and under which circumstances the two visual streams interact is still poorly understood. In the first part of the talk, I will discuss the role of the dorsal stream in body movement perception and comprehension. I will propose that the dorsal stream supports short term memory for body postures and movement and, by that way, the interpretation of actions perceived in adverse conditions. In the second part of the talk I will present the main findings of an ongoing study of a person with an extraordinary deficit in perceiving the orientation of static 2D shapes such as black letters, arrows, abstract shapes and line drawing of objects but whose perception of the orientation of the same shapes (letters, arrows, abstract shapes) shown in 3D, very low luminance contrast and very low spatial frequencies is intact and discuss its implications.