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Extensive childhood experience with Pokémon suggests eccentricity drives organization of visual cortex

Abstract

The functional organization of human high-level visual cortex, such as the face- and place-selective regions, is strikingly consistent across individuals. An unanswered question in neuroscience concerns which dimensions of visual information constrain the development and topography of this shared brain organization. To answer this question, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging to scan a unique group of adults who, as children, had extensive visual experience with Pokémon. These animal-like, pixelated characters are dissimilar from other ecological categories, such as faces and places, along critical dimensions (foveal bias, rectilinearity, size, animacy). We show not only that adults who have Pokémon experience demonstrate distinct distributed cortical responses to Pokémon, but also that the experienced retinal eccentricity during childhood can predict the locus of Pokémon responses in adulthood. These data demonstrate that inherent functional representations in the visual cortex—retinal eccentricity—combined with consistent viewing behaviour of particular stimuli during childhood result in a shared functional topography in adulthood.

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Fig. 1: Localizer stimuli and behavioural naming performance.
Fig. 2: Experienced participants demonstrate a consistent and distinct representation for Pokémon compared to novices.
Fig. 3: Distinct cortical representation for Pokémon in experienced participants.
Fig. 4: Different visual feature statistics predict different cortical locations for Pokémon.
Fig. 5: Average contrast maps for Pokémon; and anatomical localization reveals lateral VTC responses in experienced subjects.
Fig. 6: pRF modelling reveals that the Pokémon-selective cortex is foveally biased.
Fig. 7: Places from the Pokémon game elicit typical place-selective activations in experienced participants.
Fig. 8: Response properties of the VTC vary with childhood experience with Pokémon.

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Data availability

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author on request. There are no restrictions on the sharing of the data, apart from allowing sufficient time to curate and send them on request.

Code availability

Code used to preprocess and analyse MRI data in this experiment can be found at Vistasoft (https://github.com/vistalab/vistasoft). Remaining code used to further process the data in this experiment can be found at https://www.gomezneuro.com/code.

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Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award grant no. F31EY027201 to J.G., NIH grant nos. 1ROI1EY02231801A1 and 2RO1EY022318-06 to K.G.-S. and a seed grant awarded to J.G. by the Stanford University Center for Cognitive and Neurobiological Imaging. We thank A. Urai for her Matlab plotting toolbox. The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish or preparation of the manuscript.

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J.G. and M.B. designed and conducted the study. J.G. analysed the data. K.G.-S. oversaw the study and data analyses. J.G. and K.G.-S. wrote the manuscript.

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Correspondence to Jesse Gomez.

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Gomez, J., Barnett, M. & Grill-Spector, K. Extensive childhood experience with Pokémon suggests eccentricity drives organization of visual cortex. Nat Hum Behav 3, 611–624 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-019-0592-8

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