Distributed and overlapping neural substrates for object individuation and identification in visual shortterm memory. Cereb. Cortex. doi: 10.1093/cercor/bhu212. [Epub ahead of print

Object individuation and identification are 2 key processes involved in representing visual information in short-term memory (VSTM). In-dividuation involves the use of spatial and temporal cues to register an object as a distinct perceptual event relative to other stimuli, whereas object identification involves extraction of featural and related conceptual properties of a stimulus. Together, individuation and identification provide the “what, ” “where, ” and “when ” of visual perception. In the current study, we asked whether individuation and identification processes are underpinned by distinct neural sub-strates, and to what extent brain regions that reflect these 2 opera-tions are consistent across encoding, maintenance, and retrieval stages of VSTM. We used functional magnetic resonance imaging to identify brain regions that represent the number of objects (individu-ation) and/or object features (identification) in an array. Using uni-variate and multivariate analyses, we found substantial overlap between these 2 operations in the brain. Moreover, we show that regions supporting individuation and identification vary across dis-tinct stages of information processing. Our findings challenge influ-ential models of multiple-object encoding in VSTM, which argue that individuation and identification are underpinned by a limited set of nonoverlapping brain regions