Spatial reorganization of object representations in high-level visual cortex distinguishes working memory from perception.

Overview

1. School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
2. Peking-Tsinghua Center for Life Sciences, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China
3. IDG/McGovern Institute for Brain Research, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China

Abstract

The visual system balances veridical object perception with flexible visual working memory (VWM), both engaging high-level visual regions. However, how these competing demands shape object-selective cortex (OSC) representations remains unclear. Here, we ask whether VWM inherits the spatial constraints observed in the OSC during perception or reorganizes representations to meet mnemonic demands. Using a matched task design and functional magnetic resonance imaging–based decoding, we systematically compared the localization of object-identity representations during perception and VWM. A robust dissociation emerged: Perception kept object information largely contralateral, whereas VWM produced robust ipsilateral representation even when memorizing bilateral items. These expanded representations exploited more than 90% of ipsilateral OSC vertices and could not be attributed to increased attentional span. Critically, the ipsilateral representations closely mirrored contralateral representations, implicating interhemispheric coordination in VWM. Together, these findings demonstrate that object VWM flexibly recruits distributed high-level visual cortex, with spatial reorganization distinguishing mnemonic flexibility from perceptual fidelity.

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Data, code, and materials availability

All data and code needed to evaluate and reproduce the results in the paper are present in the paper and/or the Supplementary Materials. Additional data and code used to generate the results and figures are publicly available at the Dryad Digital Repository (DOI: 10.5061/dryad.3xsj3txts (http://dx.doi.org/10.5061/dryad.3xsj3txts)). This study did not generate new materials.

Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY-NC), from the paper cited above.

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Version 1, 28 September 2026: the first record

Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, issue, pages, dates, 3 authors, 11 MeSH terms, 4 funders, 95 references.

Cite

This paper

Li, W., Yang, J., & Bao, P. (2026). Spatial reorganization of object representations in high-level visual cortex distinguishes working memory from perception. Science advances, 12(19), eaea7764. https://doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aea7764

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