Competition Tracks

The main goal of the 2019 Algonauts challenge is to predict brain activity from two sources—fMRI data from two brain regions (Track 1), or MEG data from two temporal windows (Track 2)—using computational models. The brain activity is in response to viewing sets of images; for each image set, fMRI and MEG data are collected from the same 15 human subjects. Participants can choose to play in Track 1 (fMRI), Track 2 (MEG), or both.

Underlying object recognition is a hierarchical processing cascade (called the “ventral visual stream”) in which neural activity unfolds in space and time. At the beginning of the hierarchy, there is a region called the early visual cortex (EVC), shown in red in the figure. Neurons in this area respond to lines or edges with specific orientations. As EVC is early in the processing cascade, it responds early in time.



Later in this hierarchy there is a region called the inferior temporal cortex (IT), shown in yellow. Neurons in this region have been found to respond to images of objects.

In the 2019 edition of the Algonauts challenge, the target is to explain brain activity in two segments of the visual processing cascade. The brain regions to explain are EVC and IT for Track 1, and two intervals in time (early interval around the peak of response in EVC and later interval around the peak of response in IT, with respect to when an image was shown to human subjects) for Track 2.

Given a set of images consisting of everyday objects and corresponding brain activity recorded while human subjects viewed those images, participants will devise computational models which predict brain activity, which will be used to predict the brain activity for a brand new set of images.