Transformed Visual Working Memory Representations in Human Occipitotemporal and Posterior Parietal Cortices

Cross-distractor decoding of VWM targets for trials with distractors. A, An illustration of within-target and cross-distractor target decoding during the delay period. A classifier was either trained by VWM targets or by distractors to decode VWM targets. The distractors during VWM target training and the targets during distractor training were matched (e.g., couches in the examples shown). See Extended Data Figure 2-1 for additional results showing that the same results were obtained regardless of whether or not the irrelevant object remained the same or different in distractor training and target testing. B, Results of A for all the ROIs (left) and the three ROI sectors (right). C, Same as A, except target training and decoding occurred during the encoding period. Distractor training still occurred during the delay period. D, Results of C for all the ROIs (left) and the three ROI sectors (right). E, Cross-decoding ratios for both types of cross-decoding for all the ROIs. F, The same results as in E for the three ROI sectors. In B and D, the colored symbols above the bars mark the decoding significance of each bar compared with chance (0.5). The black symbols right above the colored symbols mark the significance of decoding drop between within and cross-decoding. In E and F, the colored symbols above the bars mark the significance of the ratio compared with 1. The black symbols right above the colored symbols mark the significance of the ratio difference between the two types of cross-decoding. In B, D, and F, the black symbols above the brackets mark the significance of the difference in either cross-decoding drop (B and D) or ratio for the two types of cross-decoding (F) between pairs of ROI sectors. Error bars indicate SEM. *p < 0.05, **0.01 < p < 0.001, ***p < 0.001.

Comparing cross-distractor decoding of VWM targets for trials with and without distractors. A, An illustration of within-target and cross-distractor target decoding during the delay period for trials with distractors (same as in Fig. 2A). B, Same as A, but for trials without distractors. C, Results of A and B, plotted for separately each ROI. D, Same as C, for the three ROI sectors. In C and D, the colored symbols above the bars mark the decoding significance of each bar compared with chance (0.5). The black symbols above the colored symbols mark the significance of the decoding drop between within and cross-decoding. Error bars indicate SEM. *p < 0.05, **0.01 < p < 0.001, ***p < 0.001.