Neural Coding of Cognitive Control: The Representational Similarity Analysis Approach

Cognitive control relies on distributed and potentially high-dimensional frontoparietal task representations. Yet, the classical cognitive neuroscience approach in this domain has focused on aggregating and contrasting neural measures – either via univariate or multivariate methods – along highly abstracted, 1D factors (e.g., Stroop congruency). Here, we present representational similarity analysis (RSA) as a complementary approach that can powerfully inform representational components of cognitive control theories. We review several exemplary uses of RSA in this regard. We further show that most classical paradigms, given their factorial structure, can be optimized for RSA with minimal modification. Our aim is to illustrate how RSA can be incorporated into cognitive control investigations to shed new light on old questions.