Parallel systems for social and spatial reasoning within the cortical apex

Abstract

AbstractWhat is the cognitive and neural architecture of systems for high-level reasoning and memory in humans? We ask this question using deep neuroimaging of individual human brains on various tasks involving reasoning and memory about familiar people, places, and objects. We find that thinking about people and places elicits responses in distinct but parallel networks within high-level association cortex, spanning the frontal, parietal, and temporal lobes. Person- and place-preferring brain regions were systematically yoked across multiple cortical zones. These regions were strongly category-selective, across visual, semantic, and episodic tasks, and were specifically functionally connected to other parts of association cortex with similar category preferences. These results demonstrate that selectivity for content domain is a widespread feature of high-level association cortex in humans. They support a theoretical model in which reasoning about people and places are supported by parallel cognitive and neural mechanisms.