  The human ventral temporal cortex (VTC) plays a critical role in object
recognition. Although it is well established that visual experience shapes VTC
object representations, the impact of semantic and contextual learning is
unclear. In this study, we tracked changes in representations of novel visual
objects that emerged after learning meaningful information about each object.
Over multiple training sessions, participants learned to associate semantic
features (e.g. made of wood, floats) and spatial contextual associations (e.g.
found in gardens) with novel objects. Functional magnetic resonance imaging was
used to examine VTC activity for objects before and after learning.
Multivariate pattern similarity analyses revealed that, after learning, VTC
activity patterns carried information about the learned contextual associations
of the objects, such that objects with contextual associations exhibited higher
pattern similarity after learning. Further, these learning-induced increases in
pattern information about contextual associations were correlated with
reductions in pattern information about the objects visual features. In a
second experiment, we validated that these contextual effects translated to
real-life objects. Our findings demonstrate that visual object representations
in VTC are shaped by the knowledge we have about objects, and show that object
representations can flexibly adapt as a consequence of learning with the
changes related to the specific kind of newly acquired information.
