Prior visual context accelerates the emergence of object representations

Clarke, A.; Gu, Y.; Krugliak, A.

doi:10.64898/2026.10.15.759465

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bioRxiv · 10.64898/2026.10.15.759465

Prior visual context accelerates the emergence of object representations

Clarke, A.·Gu, Y.·Krugliak, A.

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Abstract

Our knowledge about how the world is structured allows for predictions about what objects we might see next. Visual context is known to impact the perception of subsequent objects, but we do not know what context does to the mental representation of those objects. Using MEG, we tested how a scene context changes the neural representation of visual objects, and whether the context simply enhances expected object representations, or if it acts to reorganise the temporal trajectory of object information in the brain. Using temporal generalisation decoding, we show that multiple dimensions of semantic information are shifted up to 200 ms earlier when the object and the prior context are congruent, and this temporally-shifted decoding was related to behavioural object recognition speed. This suggests that prior context can warp the temporal trajectory through which object representations are accessed and accelerate the emergence of semantic object representations in the mind.

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Clarke, A., Gu, Y., Krugliak, A.. 2026-10-16. Prior visual context accelerates the emergence of object representations. https://doi.org/10.64898/2026.10.15.759465

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