# Neural Visual Decoding via Cognitive guided Adaptive Blurring and Information Constrained Alignment

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.16418 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2605.16418/

## Key facts

- No citing papers in the map yet (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- Builds on 21 of its 55 references that are in the map.
- First posted on arXiv 14 May 2026.

## Builds on (most cited first, 21 of 21)

- [Learning Transferable Visual Models From Natural Language Supervision](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.00020/) (2021)
- [A Simple Framework for Contrastive Learning of Visual Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2002.05709/) (2020)
- [SimCSE: Simple Contrastive Learning of Sentence Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2104.08821/) (2021)
- [Evidential Deep Learning to Quantify Classification Uncertainty](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1806.01768/) (2018)
- [EEGNet: A Compact Convolutional Network for EEG-based Brain-Computer Interfaces](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1611.08024/) (2016)
- [Visual Decoding and Reconstruction via EEG Embeddings with Guided Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2403.07721/) (2024)
- [From voxels to pixels and back: Self-supervision in natural-image reconstruction from fMRI](https://mlsanity.com/paper/1907.02431/) (2019)
- [Brain decoding: toward real-time reconstruction of visual perception](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.19812/) (2023)
- [Decoding Visual Neural Representations by Multimodal Learning of Brain-Visual-Linguistic Features](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06756/) (2022)
- [MindDiffuser: Controlled Image Reconstruction from Human Brain Activity with Semantic and Structural Diffusion](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2308.04249/) (2023)
- [Robust Contrastive Learning against Noisy Views](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.04309/) (2022)
- [Contrast, Attend and Diffuse to Decode High-Resolution Images from Brain Activities](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.17214/) (2023)
- [BrainVis: Exploring the Bridge between Brain and Visual Signals via Image Reconstruction](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2312.14871/) (2023)
- [Bridging the Vision-Brain Gap with an Uncertainty-Aware Blur Prior](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.04207/) (2025)
- [CognitionCapturer: Decoding Visual Stimuli From Human EEG Signal With Multimodal Information](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.10489/) (2024)
- [Visual Neural Decoding via Improved Visual-EEG Semantic Consistency](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2408.06788/) (2024)
- [Self-supervised Learning for Label-Efficient Sleep Stage Classification: A Comprehensive Evaluation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2210.06286/) (2022)
- [Neural-MCRL: Neural Multimodal Contrastive Representation Learning for EEG-based Visual Decoding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2412.17337/) (2024)
- [BrainFLORA: Uncovering Brain Concept Representation via Multimodal Neural Embeddings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2507.09747/) (2025)
- [MindCross: Fast New Subject Adaptation with Limited Data for Cross-subject Video Reconstruction from Brain Signals](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.14196/) (2025)
- [Unveiling Deep Semantic Uncertainty Perception for Language-Anchored Multi-modal Vision-Brain Alignment](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2511.04078/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

EEG-based visual decoding aims to establish a mapping between neural signals and visual semantics. However, it remains constrained by the dual challenges of severe information granularity mismatch and the low signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) of EEG signals. Existing approaches typically treat visual features as static, ignoring the dynamic selectivity of human vision and the frequency specificity of neural oscillations. To bridge this gap, we propose CAIA, a Cognitive-guided Adaptive blurring with Information-Constrained Alignment framework for Neural-Visual decoding. On the visual side, it simulates selective attention to adaptively reduce redundancy. Meanwhile, on the EEG side, it combines neural oscillation priors with an information-bottleneck-inspired spectral sparsity regularizer to enhance SNR. Specifically, we devise a cognitive-dynamics-based adaptive blurring mechanism that dynamically integrates center-biased and saliency-guided visual cues via cross-modal attention. Furthermore, we introduce a distribution-aware boundary calibration loss to robustly rectify alignment bias caused by outlier samples. Moreover, a cognitively guided information-screening method is proposed to select task-relevant EEG oscillations. Extensive experiments demonstrate that CAIA improves both subject-dependent and subject-independent average Top-1 and Top-5 accuracy in zero-shot brain-to-image retrieval, significantly outperforming prior methods. Our work validates that optimizing visual information density to match neural granularity offers a more interpretable and robust pathway for neural decoding.