ArticleeLife2021
Neural representation of abstract task structure during generalization.
Article in eLife, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 28 papers.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
28 citing papers in PubMed, 85 citations in OpenAlex.
- Neural dynamics underlying minute-timescale persistent behaviour in the human brain.Nature human behaviour · 2026Article
- Entorhinal Cortex Signals Dimensions of Past Experience That Can Be Generalized in a Novel Environment.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Hidden State Inference or Continuous Belief Updating during a Dynamic Visuomotor Skill.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026Article
- Neural traces of composite tasks in complex task representation in the human brain reflects learning performance.PLoS biology · 2026Article
- The effects of task similarity during representation learning in brains and neural networks.Nature communications · 2025Article
- Transfer of motor learning is associated with patterns of activity in the default mode network.PLoS biology · 2025Article
- Novel Verbal Instructions Recruit Abstract Neural Patterns of Time-Variable Information Dimensionality.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2025Article
- Task structure tailors the geometry of neural representations in human lateral prefrontal cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- Compositional architecture: Orthogonal neural codes for task context and spatial memory in prefrontal cortex.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025Article
- The medial and lateral orbitofrontal cortex jointly represent the cognitive map of task space.Communications biology · 2025Article
- Abstract rule generalization for composing novel meaning recruits a frontoparietal control network.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- Domain general frontoparietal regions show modality-dependent coding of auditory and visual rules.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2025Article
- The representation of abstract goals in working memory is supported by task-congruent neural geometry.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Article
- Stimulating prefrontal cortex facilitates training transfer by increasing representational overlap.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Co-representation of Functional Brain Networks Is Shaped by Cortical Myeloarchitecture and Reveals Individual Behavioral Ability.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2024Article
- Dorsolateral prefrontal activity supports a cognitive space organization of cognitive control.eLife · 2024Article
- Trait anxiety is associated with hidden state inference during aversive reversal learning.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Comparing the segmentation of quantitative phase images of neurons using convolutional neural networks trained on simulated and augmented imagery.Neurophotonics · 2023Article
- Representation of the inferred relationships in a map-like space.Human brain mapping · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors at 3 institutions in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Cognitive models in psychology and neuroscience widely assume that the human brain maintains an abstract representation of tasks. This assumption is fundamental to theories explaining how we learn quickly, think creatively, and act flexibly. However, neural evidence for a verifiably generative abstract task representation has been lacking. Here, we report an experimental paradigm that requires forming such a representation to act adaptively in novel conditions without feedback. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, we observed that abstract task structure was represented within left mid-lateral prefrontal cortex, bilateral precuneus, and inferior parietal cortex. These results provide support for the neural instantiation of the long-supposed abstract task representation in a setting where we can verify its influence. Such a representation can afford massive expansions of behavioral flexibility without additional experience, a vital characteristic of human cognition.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.