Stage-wise Correspondence Is Insufficient: DNNs and the Brain Differ in Representational Transformations

Matching DNN and brain representations independently at each processing stage does not test whether the two systems transform representations the same way as processing unfolds. Using difference RDMs decomposed into direction and magnitude, we show that EEG and DNN transformations share direction but not magnitude, and track different stimulus properties (concrete/visual for DNNs, abstract/functional for EEG) – indicating that stage-wise correspondence alone is insufficient evidence of shared processing.