The Algonauts Project 2021 Challenge: How the Human Brain Makes Sense of a World in Motion
This work addresses the problem of bridging neuroscience and AI for researchers by releasing a standardized benchmark dataset and challenge, though it is incremental as it builds on previous editions.
The paper introduces the 2021 Algonauts Project Challenge, which provides fMRI brain response data from 10 participants viewing over 1,000 video clips to predict brain activity during visual processing, aiming to foster interdisciplinary collaboration in understanding visual intelligence.
The sciences of natural and artificial intelligence are fundamentally connected. Brain-inspired human-engineered AI are now the standard for predicting human brain responses during vision, and conversely, the brain continues to inspire invention in AI. To promote even deeper connections between these fields, we here release the 2021 edition of the Algonauts Project Challenge: How the Human Brain Makes Sense of a World in Motion (http://algonauts.csail.mit.edu/). We provide whole-brain fMRI responses recorded while 10 human participants viewed a rich set of over 1,000 short video clips depicting everyday events. The goal of the challenge is to accurately predict brain responses to these video clips. The format of our challenge ensures rapid development, makes results directly comparable and transparent, and is open to all. In this way it facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration towards a common goal of understanding visual intelligence. The 2021 Algonauts Project is conducted in collaboration with the Cognitive Computational Neuroscience (CCN) conference.