Results are shown for (a) ventral visual cortex, and (b) the hippocampus. The second row shows the raw average correlation between recall activity and the templates of the current target (black), the templates of the current competitor (red), and the templates of their corresponding baseline items matched for category (light grey and pink, respectively). The middle row shows the mean difference between competitor-related similarity and similarity with the respective baseline templates (red solid), and the corresponding best linear fits (red dotted). Replicating the main results, evidence for item-specific competitor activation showed a significant (negative) linear trend across the four repetitions in ventral visual cortex (F 1,23 = 12.47, P = 0.002), but not the hippocampus (F 1,23 = 2.47, P = 0.130). Robust below-baseline suppression at the fourth repetition was present in both regions of interest (ventral visual cortex: t 23 = 2.35, P = 0.014; hippocampus: t 23 = 2.37, P = 0.013). The lower row shows the difference between target-related similarity and similarity with the respective baseline templates. Relative to baseline templates from the same category, similarity with the target template showed a significant (positive) linear trend in the ventral visual cortex (F 1,23 = 4.62, P = 0.042), but not the hippocampus (F 1,23 = 2.61, P = 0.120), replicating the results including all trials. On the final (fourth) recall attempt, similarity with the target templates was significantly higher than similarity with the category-matched baseline items in the hippocampus (t 23 = 2.42, P = 0.012), but not in ventral visual cortex (t 23 = 0.13, P = 0.449). All line plots represent means +/− s.e.m. across subjects.