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Are Visual Texture-Selective Areas Recruited During Haptic Texture Discrimination?, Samantha K. Podrebarac

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Shape and texture provide cues to object identity, both when objects are explored using vision and via touch (haptics). Visual shape information is processed within the lateral occipital complex (LOC), while texture is processed in medial regions of the collateral sulcus (CoS). Evidence indicates that the LOC is consistently recruited during both visual and haptic shape processing. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine whether 'visual' texture-selective areas are similarly recruited when observers discriminate texture via touch. We used a blocked design in which participants attended to either the texture or shape of a number of 3-dimensional (3D) …