Representational Similarity Analysis

Also known as RSA

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Overview

Representational Similarity Analysis studies whether different systems organize the same inputs similarly, often by comparing representational dissimilarity matrices across layers, models, or brain regions. Researchers use methods such as RSA, centered kernel alignment (CKA), SVCCA, Procrustes alignment, and newer local-neighborhood, topological, and optimal-transport measures, applying them to vision and language models, brain recordings, and cross-modal benchmarks. These comparisons help map model development and brain alignment, and can inform model selection, transfer, and network stitching. A central open issue is what similarity means: scores depend on the metric, coordinates, stimuli, and calibration, and similar geometry does not necessarily imply shared concepts, computations, or behavior.

Latest papers

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41 papers7 papers in the last four weeks, up 133% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

  1. From Plato to Aristotle: Toward a General Theory of Representation Hypotheses

    Oct 14, 2026Dai Shi, Andi Han, Xiaoyu Li +2Representation AlignmentPlatonic Representation Hypothesis

    University of Cambridge · University of Sydney · University of New South Wales

  2. Scale, Drivers, and Limits of Representational Alignment Across Large Language Models

    Oct 10, 2026Jialin Wu, Meenakshi KhoslaRepresentation AlignmentRepresentation Geometry in Language Models

  3. A Better Metric Will Not Save You: What You Compare Beats How You Compare It

    Oct 9, 2026Noureddine Khaous, Guillaume WisniewskiRepresentational Similarity AnalysisRepresentation Alignment

    LLF - UMR7110, UPCité

  4. COMPASS 2.0: psychometric representational similarity analysis distinguishes symptom structure from personal signal

    Oct 5, 2026Baihan LinRepresentational Similarity AnalysisPsychometric Validation

    Department of Artificial Intelligence and Human Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA · Department of Psychiatry, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA · Department of Neuroscience, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA +2

  5. Shared Geometry Is Not Shared Physics: A Layerwise Test of the Platonic Representation Hypothesis in Astronomy

    Oct 2, 2026Kshitij Duraphe, Aravind Kannappan, Dun Li Chan +4Platonic Representation HypothesisCross-Modal Alignment

    UniverseTBD · EleutherAI · INTI International College Penang, Malaysia +4

  6. Geometric Similarity in VLM Low-Level Vision Representations

    Oct 1, 2026Shao-Jun Xia, Huixin Zhang, Zhen Lei +3Vision-Language ModelsRepresentational Similarity Analysis

    Florida State University · UNC Chapel Hill

  7. Not all solutions are created equal: An analytical dissociation of functional and representational similarity in deep linear neural networks

    Sep 30, 2026Lukas Braun, Erin Grant, Andrew M. SaxeRepresentational Similarity AnalysisNeural Representation Geometry

    Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK · Gatsby Unit & Sainsbury Wellcome Centre, University College London, London, UK

  8. The Residual Stream's Effective Depth

    Sep 25, 2026Barak Gahtan, Ido Galil, Alex M. BronsteinTransformer InterpretabilityDecoder-Only Language Models

    Technion Israel Institute of Technology · Nvidia · Technion Israel Institute of Technology & ISTA Institute of Science and Technology Austria

  9. The Alignment Illusion in Multimodal Large Language Models

    Sep 24, 2026Hong-Han Wang, Yuntao Wang, Hu DingRepresentational Similarity AnalysisMultimodal Large Language Models

    University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

  10. Vision Models Predict Urban Scene Appraisal with Limited Neural Alignment

    Aug 31, 2026Kaizhen Tan, Yuantao DengRepresentational Similarity AnalysisNeural Representation Geometry

    New York University

  11. Evaluation Resolution Confounds Learning-Rule Comparisons in Model-Brain RSA of Early Visual Cortex

    Aug 11, 2026Nils LeuteneggerRepresentational Similarity AnalysisVisual Neuroscience

    Independent Researcher, Switzerland

  12. Understanding and Overcoming Cross-modal Fusion Bias in Multimodal Anomaly Detection From A Fisher Information Perspective

    Aug 2, 2026Kaifang Long, Lianbo Ma, Liming Liu +1Representational Similarity AnalysisMultimodal Anomaly Detection

    Northeastern University Shenyang, China · CATL Ningde, China

  13. Transformer Geometry Observatory TGO-II: Representational Similarity Observatory

    Jul 2, 2026Kaustubh Kapil, Kishor P. UplaIntrinsic DimensionalityRepresentational Similarity Analysis

    Department of Electronics Engineering Sardar Vallabhai National Institute of Technology (SVNIT), Surat, India

  14. Unveiling Transferability in Trajectory Prediction via Latent Scene Embeddings

    Jun 29, 2026Theodor Westny, David Axelsson, Björn Olofsson +1Representational Similarity AnalysisMulti-Agent Trajectory Prediction

    Division of Vehicular Systems, Linköping University, Linköping, Sweden · Department of Automatic Control, Lund University, Lund, Sweden

  15. Geometric Reliability of Neural Population Codes: Sampling Calibration and Within-Session Nonstationarity

    Jun 28, 2026Prashant C. RajuRepresentational Similarity AnalysisNeural Representation Geometry

  16. Scalable and Interpretable Representation Alignment with Ordinal Similarity

    Jun 15, 2026Diogo Soares, Pankhil Gawade, Andrea Dittadi +1Representational Similarity AnalysisRepresentation Alignment

    Institute of AI for Health, Helmholtz Munich · School of Computation, Information and Technology, Technical University of Munich · Faculty of Mathematics, Informatics and Mechanics, University of Warsaw

  17. A Unifying Framework for Concept-Based Representational Similarity

    Jun 8, 2026Grégoire Dhimoïla, Agustin Martin Picard, Victor Boutin +2Representational Similarity AnalysisCross-Modal Alignment

    Brown University · ENS Paris Saclay · DEEL - IRT Saint Exup´ery +2

  18. Representational Similarity and Model Behavior in Multi-Agent Interaction

    Jun 5, 2026Yujin Potter, Seun Eisape, Shiyang Lai +6Representational Similarity AnalysisMulti-Agent Collaboration

    University of California, Berkeley · The University of Chicago, Knowledge Lab · Santa Fe Institute +2

  19. Symmetric Divergence and Normalized Similarity: A Unified Topological Framework for Representation Analysis

    Jun 4, 2026Yan Wang, Tianyang HuRepresentational Similarity AnalysisNeural Representation Geometry

    School of Data Science The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Shenzhen

  20. Multilinguality of Large Language Models From a Structural Perspective

    Jun 1, 2026Haruki Sakajo, Yusuke Sakai, Hidetaka Kamigaito +1Multilingual Language ModelsRepresentational Similarity Analysis

    Nara Institute of Science and Technology (NAIST)

  21. KLAS: Using Similarity to Stitch Neural Networks for Improved Accuracy-Efficiency Tradeoffs

    May 28, 2026Debopam Sanyal, Anantharaman Iyer, Alind Khare +5Efficient Neural Network InferenceRepresentational Similarity Analysis

    Georgia Institute of Technology · Microsoft M365 Research · Cisco Research +1

  22. LWM-CDE: A Representation Space for Wireless Data Reasoning and Transferability

    May 22, 2026Sadjad Alikhani, Akshay Malhotra, Shahab Hamidi-Rad +1Contrastive LearningRepresentational Similarity Analysis

    School of Electrical, Computer and Energy Engineering, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85281 USA · InterDigital, Inc., USA

  23. The physics of AI weather models

    May 22, 2026George Craig, Tobias Selz, Matthias Beylich +1AI for ScienceRepresentational Similarity Analysis

    Meteorological Institute, LMU Munich · Karlsruhe Institute of Technology

  24. Convergence Without Understanding: When Language Models Agree on Representations but Disagree on Reasoning

    May 22, 2026Muhammad Usama, Dong Eui ChangRepresentational Similarity AnalysisLLM Interpretability

    Control Laboratory, School of Electrical Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea · Control Laboratory, School of Electrical Engineering Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)2026 Daejeon 34141, Republic of Korea

  25. Cross-Species RSA Reveals Conserved Early Visual Alignment but Divergent Higher-Area Rankings Across Human fMRI and Macaque Electrophysiology

    May 21, 2026Nils LeuteneggerRepresentational Similarity AnalysisVisual Representation Learning

    Independent Researcher, Switzerland

  26. ASSEMBLAGE-DEEPHISTORY: A Cross-Build Binary Dataset with Temporal Coverage

    May 20, 2026Chang Liu, Noah Fleischmann, Nicolò Altamura +3Representational Similarity AnalysisSoftware Vulnerability Detection

    Syracuse University, Syracuse, USA · Booz Allen Hamilton, McLean, USA · Independent Researcher, Italy +1

  27. Stimulus symmetries can confound representational similarity analyses

    May 20, 2026Farhad Pashakhanloo, Jacob A. Zavatone-VethRepresentational Similarity AnalysisRepresentation Learning

    Center for Brain Science and 2Society of Fellows Harvard University, Cambridge, MA, USA

  28. From Layers to Networks: Comparing Neural Representations via Diffusion Geometry

    May 15, 2026Atharva Khandait, Jan E. GerkenRepresentational Similarity AnalysisNeural Representation Geometry

    Department of Mathematical Sciences, Chalmers University of Technology and the University of Gothenburg, SE-412 96 Gothenburg, Sweden.

  29. Biological Plausibility and Representational Alignment of Feedback Alignment in Convolutional Networks

    May 8, 2026Jake Lance, Larry KieuRepresentational Similarity AnalysisBackpropagation

    University of Toronto

  30. Functional Similarity Metric for Neural Networks: Overcoming Parametric Ambiguity via Activation Region Analysis

    Apr 4, 2026Kutomanov HennadiiRepresentational Similarity AnalysisNeural Network Interpretability