Figure 4. Distinct timescales of alignment and separation in cortical dynamics.

(A) Schematic of internal representations falling into and out of alignment as common and distinct inputs are presented. Two groups gradually construct a shared context when they listen to the same input preceded by different contexts, and thus their neural responses fall into alignment. When common input ends, the two groups begin to process a distinct input preceded by a shared context, and participants forget this shared context over time. (B) Schematic of inter-subject pattern correlation (ISPC) analysis, when different speech segments are preceded by the same context. Here, segment D in the intact group and segment E in the scramble group were both preceded by segment C (CD:CE). (C) Empirical rSI_DE:CE results grouped by alignment time of 3–6 seconds, 6–9 seconds and 9–11 seconds. (D) Empirical rSI_CD:CE results, using the same region groupings from the rSI_DE:CE results in Panel C. Regions at different levels of cortical hierarchy can forget context at similar rates. rSI = intact-scramble ISPC.