A group of Korean scientists says it has discovered that the visual area under a human brain’s temporal lobe perceives and processes both the shape and movement of an object.

The group led by Psychology Professors Kim Min-shik and Yi Do-joon of Yonsei University said their findings supported that the visual area not only recognizes visual characteristics such as color and shape, but also contributes to the functions associated with spatial reasoning.

Until now, an established theory in the field of psychology supported that a lower part of the brain recognized an object’s shape and color, while an upper part its spatial position.

Kim and Yi’s findings were published in a recent report of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences.