{
  "abstract": "Conceptual knowledge can be accessed from different modalities, such as seeing an image or reading a written word. While prior neuroimaging studies implicate anterior temporal cortex in modality-independent semantic representations, when and how representations evoked by images and words converge onto a modality-independent code remains unclear. Moreover, evidence for modality-independent category representations comes largely from tasks that explicitly required semantic processing, leaving open whether such representations emerge when semantic category and stimulus modality are task-irrelevant. We magnetoencephalography (MEG) to determine when and where modality-independent semantic category representations emerge across images and words when participants (n = 32) encoded six-item sequences containing an exemplar of six semantic categories counterbalanced across positions and reported the ordinal position of a probed item. Decoding performance was above chance for all categories in each modality from approximately 70 ms relative to item presentation. Generalization peaked at similar latencies for the two modalities (~520-530 ms), where image and word classifiers had the most similar coefficients. In both transfer directions, activity elicited by images generalized mostly to later activity elicited by words, and a given period of the image response shared its category code with a longer period of the word response. Source-space decoding around the peak of generalization identified the same regions for both transfer directions: left and right anterior temporal lobe, perisylvian cortex (more extensive in the left hemisphere), right visual cortex, and bilateral orbitofrontal cortex, indicating a modality-independent category code distributed across the cortex.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [
    "University of Geneva"
  ],
  "article_type": "New results",
  "arxiv": null,
  "author_total": 5,
  "authors": [
    {
      "affs": [
        0
      ],
      "name": "N. Piron"
    },
    {
      "name": "T. Desbordes"
    },
    {
      "name": "I. M. Olasagasti"
    },
    {
      "name": "S. Schwartz"
    },
    {
      "name": "N. Kazanina"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5z171ezwrk674.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.64898/2026.10.30.763035",
  "fulltext_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.30.763035v1.full",
  "id": "5z171ezwrk674",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.30.763035v1",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "CC-BY-ND",
  "licence_label": "CC BY-ND",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/",
  "metadata_licence": null,
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "biorxiv",
      "neuroscience"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.30.763035v1.full.pdf",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-10-30",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5z171ezwrk674.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-10-31T12:21:10Z",
      "native_id": "10.64898/2026.10.30.763035",
      "source": "biorxiv",
      "url": "https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.30.763035v1"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "biology",
      "origin": "biorxiv:neuroscience",
      "subfield": "neuroscience"
    }
  ],
  "title": "From Images and Words to Modality-Independent Semantic Representations: When and Where They Emerge",
  "title_text": "From Images and Words to Modality-Independent Semantic Representations: When and Where They Emerge",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-01T00:21:47Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/5z171ezwrk674",
  "venue": "bioRxiv",
  "versions": []
}