Representation of spatial sequences using nested rules in human prefrontal cortex
- Wang, Liping
- Amalric, Marie
- Fang, Wen
- Jiang, Xinjian
- Pallier, Christophe
- Figueira, Santiago
- Sigman, Mariano
- Dehaene, Stanislas
DOIAbstract
Memory for spatial sequences does not depend solely on the number of locations to be stored, but also on the presence of spatial regularities. Here, we show that the human brain quickly stores spatial sequences by detecting geometrical regularities at multiple time scales and encoding them in a format akin to a programming language. We measured gaze-anticipation behavior while spatial sequences of variable regularity were repeated. Participants’ behavior suggested that they quickly discovered the most compact description of each sequence in a language comprising nested rules, and used these rules to compress the sequence in memory and predict the next items. Activity in dorsal inferior prefrontal cortex correlated with the amount of compres...
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