Evidence map›Paper›PMID 40601729›Full record

ArticleScience advances2025

Universal dimensions of visual representation.

Zirui Chen, Michael F Bonner

Abstract read
In one paragraph

Article in Science advances, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers.

0numbers the graph read from it
0cells of the map it votes in
10citing papers in PubMed
–field-weighted citation impact
1 · What the graph read from it

What it found

Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.

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.

2 · The registry

The trial behind it

Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.

Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.

3 · Its place in the literature

Who cites it

10 citing papers in PubMed.

  1. Article
  2. Making models disagree to learn how brains compute.Nature reviews. Neuroscience · 2026
    Review
  3. Multidimensional Feature Tuning in Category Selective Areas of Human Visual Cortex.The Journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience · 2026
    Article
  4. Article
  5. Article
  6. Article
  7. Article
  8. Article
  9. Convolutional architectures are cortex-aligned de novo.bioRxiv : the preprint server for biology · 2025
    Article
  10. Article
4 · The record

Corrections and comments

PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.

5 · Who and what money

Authors and funding

2 authors.

Zirui ChenDepartment of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore 21218, USA.ORCID 0000-0003-3666-1719
Michael F BonnerDepartment of Cognitive Science, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore 21218, USA.ORCID 0000-0002-4992-674X

Funding

No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.

6 · The paper itself

Abstract

Do visual neural networks learn brain-aligned representations because they share architectural constraints and task objectives with biological vision or because they share universal features of natural image processing? We characterized the universality of hundreds of thousands of representational dimensions from networks with different architectures, tasks, and training data. We found that diverse networks learn to represent natural images using a shared set of latent dimensions, despite having highly distinct designs. Next, by comparing these networks with human brain representations measured with functional magnetic resonance imaging, we found that the most brain-aligned representations in neural networks are those that are universal and independent of a network's specific characteristics. Each network can be reduced to fewer than 10 of its most universal dimensions with little impact on its representational similarity to the brain. These results suggest that the underlying similarities between artificial and biological vision are primarily governed by a core set of universal representations that are convergently learned by diverse systems.

Indexed as

BrainNeural Networks, ComputerVision, OcularVisual PerceptionBrain MappingHumansImage Processing, Computer-AssistedMagnetic Resonance Imaging

Identifiers

PMID40601729
PMCPMC12219468

What OpenQuestion holds

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Registered trials

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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.