The distributed representation of random and meaningful object pairs in human occipitotemporal cortex: the weighted average as a general rule

Natural scenes typically contain multiple visual objects, often in interaction, such as when a bottle is used to fill a glass. Previous studies disagree about the representation of multiple objects and the role of object position herein, nor did they pinpoint the effect of potential interactions between the objects. In an fMRI study, we presented four single objects in two different positions and object pairs consisting of all possible combinations of the single objects. Objects pairs could form either a meaningful action configuration in which they interact with each other or a non-meaningful configuration. We found that for single objects and object pairs both identity and position were represented in multi-voxel activity patterns in LOC. The response patterns of object pairs were best predicted by a weighted average of the response patterns of the constituent objects, with the strongest single-object response (the max response) weighted more than the min response. The difference in weight between the max and the min object was larger for familiar action pairs than for other pairs when participants attended to the configuration. A weighted average thus relates the response patterns of object pairs to the response patterns of single objects, even when the objects interact.