Multidimensional feature tuning in category-selective areas of human visual cortex

Abstract

Human high-level visual cortex has been described in two seemingly opposed ways. A categorical view emphasizes discrete category-selective areas, while a dimensional view highlights continuous feature maps spanning across these areas. Can these divergent perspectives on cortical organization be reconciled within a unifying framework? Using data-driven decomposition of fMRI responses in face-, body-, and scene-selective areas, we identified overlapping activity patterns shared across individuals. Each area encoded multiple interpretable dimensions tuned to both finer subcategory features and coarser cross-category distinctions beyond its preferred category, even in the most category-selective voxels. These dimensions formed distinct clusters within category-selective areas but were also sparsely distributed across the broader visual cortex, supporting both locally selective, category-specific, and globally distributed, feature-based coding. Together, these findings suggest multidimensional tuning as a fundamental organizing principle that integrates feature-selective clusters, category-selective areas, and large-scale tuning maps, providing a more comprehensive understanding of category representations in human visual cortex.