The interaction between A1 and PFC was set to occur through low-rank connectivity in opposite directions (feedforward in orange and feedback in gray). In contrast to the trained network, context is delivered transiently to PFC (dashed), stored in persistent activity and fed back to A1 (context, gray). In turn, stimuli are delivered to A1 and are not communicated to PFC, thus remaining in a private subspace of A1 (bottom left). The relevant stimulus, which is selected within A1 by integrating the stimuli and context, is communicated to PFC along the selection axis (selection, orange). Solid black circles represent the two variables that are shared across areas. On the bottom, connectivity schematics illustrates the geometric relationship between within- and across-area connectivity vectors, with similar colors illustrating strong overlap.
