Task Dependence of Visual Representations

Given an image, there is essentially an infinite number of questions that could be posed, all of which a human can answer effortlessly. This naturally leads to the question, is the visual representation of an image fixed regardless of the task at hand? We are probing this question by combining visual psychophysics, invasive neurophysiological recordings in humans, and computational modeling. Our experimental paradigm consists of presenting images to patients undergoing surgery for epilepsy and asking a series of distinct questions. By understanding the brain's capability to perform this task, we hope to inform computational models that can accomplish the core CBMM Challenge.