Dear experts,
I am currently encountering some confusion in my RSA (Representational Similarity Analysis) research and hope to find some answers here. At present, I have established a theoretical RDM (Representational Dissimilarity Matrix), as shown in the left diagram below. This RDM is primarily aimed at identifying brain regions that represent the concept of “animacy.” The two zero-matrix areas in the RDM represent dissimilarities for trials involving living and non-living entities, respectively. My question is: can brain regions that significantly correlate with this RDM be considered as representing living and non-living entities? Is this different from representing “animacy” as a concept? Or does it represent something else?
Additionally, I have developed another RDM, where I have eliminated the zero matrix for non-living entities (as shown in the right diagram below). My objective is to identify brain regions that represent non-living entities. Is this approach feasible?
I appreciate your guidance and look forward to your response.
Thank you in advance!