Inferotemportal cortex

From Psy3242

The inferior temporal gyrus is placed below the middle temporal sulcus, and is connected behind with the inferior occipital gyrus; it also extends around the infero-lateral border on to the inferior surface of the temporal lobe, where it is limited by the inferior sulcus. This region is one of the higher levels of the ventral stream of visual processing, associated with the representation of complex object features, such as global shape. It may also be involved in face perception.

The inferior temporal cortex (IT) of primates is thought to be the final visual area in the ventral stream of cortical areas responsible for object recognition.

new studies show that the inferior temporal cortex not only controls shape discriminations based on illusory contours and some oddity discriminations were severely and permanently affected. Krystel R. Huxlin, Richard C. Saunders1, Deanna Marchionini, Hong-An Pham and William H. Merigan results also showed that IT lesions caused permanent, moderate to large impairments of color vision, but not color blindness. so the IT area does have influence on shape recognition, but it also may help regulate color vision.