Representational structure or task structure? Bias in neural representational similarity analysis and a Bayesian method for reducing bias

Mingbo Cai, Nicolas W. Schuck, Jonathan W. Pillow, Yael Niv

Abstract: Author summary We show the severity of the bias introduced when performing representational similarity analysis (RSA) based on neural activity pattern estimated within imaging runs. Our Bayesian RSA method significantly reduces the bias and can learn a shared representational structure across multiple participants. We also demonstrate its extension as a new multi-class decoding tool.