High-dimensional structure underlying individual differences in naturalistic visual experience

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Han, Chihye, Bonner, Michael F.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2025
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author Han, Chihye
Bonner, Michael F.
author_facet Han, Chihye
Bonner, Michael F.
contents How do different brains create unique visual experiences from identical sensory input? While neural representations vary across individuals, the fundamental architecture underlying these differences remains poorly understood. Here, we reveal that individual visual experience emerges from a high-dimensional neural geometry across the visual cortical hierarchy. Using spectral decomposition of fMRI responses during naturalistic movie viewing, we find that idiosyncratic neural patterns persist across multiple orders of magnitude of latent dimensions. Remarkably, each dimensional range encodes qualitatively distinct aspects of individual processing, and this multidimensional neural geometry predicts subsequent behavioral differences in memory recall. These fine-grained patterns of inter-individual variability cannot be reduced to those detected by conventional intersubject correlation measures. Our findings demonstrate that subjective visual experience arises from information integrated across an expansive multidimensional manifold. This geometric framework offers a powerful new lens for understanding how diverse brains construct unique perceptual worlds from shared experiences.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_12653
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle High-dimensional structure underlying individual differences in naturalistic visual experience
Han, Chihye
Bonner, Michael F.
Neurons and Cognition
How do different brains create unique visual experiences from identical sensory input? While neural representations vary across individuals, the fundamental architecture underlying these differences remains poorly understood. Here, we reveal that individual visual experience emerges from a high-dimensional neural geometry across the visual cortical hierarchy. Using spectral decomposition of fMRI responses during naturalistic movie viewing, we find that idiosyncratic neural patterns persist across multiple orders of magnitude of latent dimensions. Remarkably, each dimensional range encodes qualitatively distinct aspects of individual processing, and this multidimensional neural geometry predicts subsequent behavioral differences in memory recall. These fine-grained patterns of inter-individual variability cannot be reduced to those detected by conventional intersubject correlation measures. Our findings demonstrate that subjective visual experience arises from information integrated across an expansive multidimensional manifold. This geometric framework offers a powerful new lens for understanding how diverse brains construct unique perceptual worlds from shared experiences.
title High-dimensional structure underlying individual differences in naturalistic visual experience
topic Neurons and Cognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.12653