Extrastriate body area

[3] As published in the article, “A Cortical Area Selective for Visual Processing of the Human Body,”[1] researcher, Paul E. Downing, Yuhong Jiang, Miles Shuman and Nancy Kanwisher, first discovered the EBA in 2001.

Fourteen right handed participants were required to decide which of two similar upper-limb images matched a single sample previously seen during a tachistoscopic exposure.

This measurement of response time, occurring while rTMS was effecting the EBA, further shows that the two areas process visual data of the human form, yet respond to different stimuli.

While the magnetic stimulation was temporarily disabling the extrastraite body area, reaction time decreased by about 100 ms.

The data from the Sham and Visual Cortex categories on the graph show what was the expected normal results from the experiment.

This evidence reveals that applying rTMS to the EBA slowed the response of recognizing images of body parts.

Timeline of the task, study by Urgesi et al. (2004)
Reaction time graph, study by Urgesi et al. (2004)