Characterizing Universal Object Representations Across Vision Models

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Mahner, Florian P., Roth, Johannes, Lam, Ka Chun, Bonner, Michael F., Pereira, Francisco, Hebart, Martin N.
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
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author Mahner, Florian P.
Roth, Johannes
Lam, Ka Chun
Bonner, Michael F.
Pereira, Francisco
Hebart, Martin N.
author_facet Mahner, Florian P.
Roth, Johannes
Lam, Ka Chun
Bonner, Michael F.
Pereira, Francisco
Hebart, Martin N.
contents Deep neural networks trained with different architectures, objectives, and datasets have been reported to converge on similar visual representations. However, what remains unknown is which visual properties models actually converge on and which factors may underlie this convergence. To address this, we decompose the object similarity structure of 162 diverse vision models into a small set of non-negative dimensions. To determine universal versus model-specific dimensions, we then estimate how often each dimension reappears across models. In contrast to model-specific dimensions, universal dimensions are more interpretable and more strongly driven by conceptual image properties, indicating the relevance of interpretability and semantic content as implicit factors driving universality across models. Differences in architecture, objective function, training data, model size, and model performance do not explain the emergence of universal dimensions. However, models with more universal dimensions also better predict macaque IT activity and human similarity judgments, suggesting that universality reflects representations relevant to biological vision. These findings have important implications for understanding the emergent representations underlying deep neural network models and their alignment with biological vision.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2605_13675
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Characterizing Universal Object Representations Across Vision Models
Mahner, Florian P.
Roth, Johannes
Lam, Ka Chun
Bonner, Michael F.
Pereira, Francisco
Hebart, Martin N.
Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Neurons and Cognition
Deep neural networks trained with different architectures, objectives, and datasets have been reported to converge on similar visual representations. However, what remains unknown is which visual properties models actually converge on and which factors may underlie this convergence. To address this, we decompose the object similarity structure of 162 diverse vision models into a small set of non-negative dimensions. To determine universal versus model-specific dimensions, we then estimate how often each dimension reappears across models. In contrast to model-specific dimensions, universal dimensions are more interpretable and more strongly driven by conceptual image properties, indicating the relevance of interpretability and semantic content as implicit factors driving universality across models. Differences in architecture, objective function, training data, model size, and model performance do not explain the emergence of universal dimensions. However, models with more universal dimensions also better predict macaque IT activity and human similarity judgments, suggesting that universality reflects representations relevant to biological vision. These findings have important implications for understanding the emergent representations underlying deep neural network models and their alignment with biological vision.
title Characterizing Universal Object Representations Across Vision Models
topic Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition
Machine Learning
Neurons and Cognition
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.13675