The Natural Scene Dataset (NSD)

The Natural Scenes Dataset (NSD) is a large-scale fMRI dataset conducted at ultra-high-field (7T) strength at the Center of Magnetic Resonance Research (CMRR) at the University of Minnesota. The dataset consists of whole-brain, high-resolution (1.8-mm isotropic, 1.6-s sampling rate) fMRI measurements of 8 healthy adult subjects while they viewed thousands of color natural scenes over the course of 30–40 scan sessions. While viewing these images, subjects were engaged in a continuous recognition task in which they reported whether they had seen each given image at any point in the experiment. These data constitute a massive benchmark dataset for computational models of visual representation and cognition, and can support a wide range of scientific inquiry.