Neural Representations of Visual Anagrams in Macaque Inferotemporal Cortex
- 1Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.; School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing
Abstract
Visual recognition requires stable representations of object identity despite large changes in the retinal image. Yet this stability must be selective: some transformations change not only how an image looks, but also what object it appears to depict. Visual anagrams highlight this challenge: a single image can resemble two different objects at different orientations, such as an elephant and a rabbit. Here, we asked how macaque inferotemporal (IT) cortex represents such transformations. We recorded large neuronal populations while presenting visual anagrams and unambiguous exemplars of their two interpretations across rotations. Neurons preferring one exemplar tended to prefer anagram orientations supporting the corresponding interpretation. At each of the two interpretation-relevant canonical angles, population responses more closely resembled those to the matching exemplar than those to the nonmatching exemplar. This matching advantage persisted when both exemplars were presented at the alternative canonical angle. Decoders trained exclusively on exemplars across rotations also tracked the shifts in anagram representations. Visual models showed anagram-exemplar alignment as well, with stronger alignment in models with greater relative shape preference. These findings suggest that transformation tolerance in IT is sensitive to what an image appears to depict, while relative shape preference is associated with similar representational organization in visual models.
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BibTeX
@misc{yipeng2026neural,
title = {{Neural Representations of Visual Anagrams in Macaque Inferotemporal Cortex}},
author = {L. Yipeng and R. Zhang and J. Luo and Z. Zhao and X. Liu and Z. Gong and W. Jin and W. Li and P. Bao},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = oct,
doi = {10.64898/2026.10.05.755559},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.755559v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Neural Representations of Visual Anagrams in Macaque Inferotemporal Cortex
AU - L. Yipeng
AU - R. Zhang
AU - J. Luo
AU - Z. Zhao
AU - X. Liu
AU - Z. Gong
AU - W. Jin
AU - W. Li
AU - P. Bao
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/10/05
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.10.05.755559
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.10.05.755559v1
AB - Visual recognition requires stable representations of object identity despite large changes in the retinal image. Yet this stability must be selective: some transformations change not only how an image looks, but also what object it appears to depict. Visual anagrams highlight this challenge: a single image can resemble two different objects at different orientations, such as an elephant and a rabbit. Here, we asked how macaque inferotemporal (IT) cortex represents such transformations. We recorded large neuronal populations while presenting visual anagrams and unambiguous exemplars of their two interpretations across rotations. Neurons preferring one exemplar tended to prefer anagram orientations supporting the corresponding interpretation. At each of the two interpretation-relevant canonical angles, population responses more closely resembled those to the matching exemplar than those to the nonmatching exemplar. This matching advantage persisted when both exemplars were presented at the alternative canonical angle. Decoders trained exclusively on exemplars across rotations also tracked the shifts in anagram representations. Visual models showed anagram-exemplar alignment as well, with stronger alignment in models with greater relative shape preference. These findings suggest that transformation tolerance in IT is sensitive to what an image appears to depict, while relative shape preference is associated with similar representational organization in visual models.
ER -