We also found that neural shape discriminability was higher on behaviorally correct vs. incorrect trials, suggesting that early visual representations may directly support task performance.

Our results show representations became more discriminable across task-relevant category boundaries, especially in early visual areas (V1 & V2). These changes were especially noticeable for shapes near the category boundary -- suggesting stronger task effects for perceptually difficult stimuli.

To test this, we trained participants to categorize novel shape stimuli along different category boundaries, while in the fMRI scanner. We then used multivariate decoding from retinotopic visual areas to measure shape discriminability in each task.

🚨Prospective grad school applicants! My lab at Carnegie Mellon University is recruiting PhD students to start in Fall 2025.