Compressibility of high-dimensional conceptual information across the human cortex

Brisbane Convention & Exhibition Centre 

Humans excel at organizing high-dimensional conceptual information into low-dimensional semantic spaces [1], facilitating complex mental operations such as analogical reasoning, inferences and generalization [2]. Despite extensive behavioral evidence for this compression process, its neural basis and cortical topography remain largely unexplored. Using ultra-high resolution 7T fMRI and a comprehensive set of 1,854 object concepts, here we investigated how cortical responses represent and compress semantic information into low-dimensional manifolds. Our results highlight the default mode network (DMN) as a critical hub for semantic compression, providing novel insights into how humans efficiently organize and utilize conceptual knowledge [3].