There has been a long-standing debate about whether categories are represented by individual category members (exemplars) or by the central tendency abstracted from individual members (prototypes). Across neuroimaging studies, there has been neural evidence for either exemplar representations or prototype representations, but not both. In the present study, we asked whether it is possible for individuals to form multiple types of category representations within a single task. We designed a categorization task to promote both exemplar and prototype representations, and we tracked their formation across learning. We found evidence for co-existing prototype and exemplar representations in brain in regions that aligned with previous studies: prototypes in ventromedial prefrontal cortex and anterior hippocampus and exemplars in inferior frontal gyrus and lateral parietal cortex. These findings show that, under the right circumstances, individuals may form representations at multiple levels of specificity, potentially facilitating a broad range of future memory-based decisions.

中文翻译：

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基于模型的功能磁共振成像揭示了特定概念和广义概念的共存

关于类别是由单个类别成员（示例）还是从单个成员抽象化的集中趋势（原型）代表了一个长期的争论。在整个神经影像学研究中，都有神经证据可以证明示例性表示或原型表示，但不能两者兼而有之。在本研究中，我们询问个人是否有可能在单个任务中形成多种类型的类别表示。我们设计了一个分类任务，以促进示例性表示和原型表示，并在整个学习过程中跟踪它们的形成。我们发现与先前研究一致的区域中大脑中共存的原型和样例表征的证据：腹侧前额叶皮层和前海马体的原型，以及额额下回和顶叶外侧皮层的样机。这些发现表明，在适当的情况下，个体可以在多个特异性水平上形成表征，从而有可能促进未来基于记忆的广泛决策。