Automatic Sensory Predictions: A Review of Predictive Mechanisms in the Brain and Their Link to Conscious Processing

Abstract

The human brain has the astonishing capacity of integrating streams of sensory information from the environment and forming predictions about future events in an automatic way. Despite being initially developed for visual processing, the bulk of predictive coding research has subsequently focused on auditory processing, with the famous mismatch negativity signal as possibly the most studied signature of a surprise or prediction error (PE) signal. Auditory PEs are present during various consciousness states. Intriguingly, their presence and characteristics have been linked with residual levels of consciousness and return of awareness. In this review we first give an overview of the neural substrates of predictive processes in the auditory modality and their relation to consciousness. Then, we focus on different states of consciousness - wakefulness, sleep, anesthesia, coma, meditation, and hypnosis - and on what mysteries predictive processing has been able to disclose about brain functioning in such states. We review studies investigating how the neural signatures of auditory predictions are modulated by states of reduced or lacking consciousness. As a future outlook, we propose the combination of electrophysiological and computational techniques that will allow investigation of which facets of sensory predictive processes are maintained when consciousness fades away.

AIT Foundations of Structured Experience

“…Some deep meditative states are associated with the global dissolution of the embodied self [Millière et al, 2018] and can thus serve as unique models for a neurophenomenological investigation of self-dissolution (disengagement of self-models). Recent conceptual mechanistic frameworks of meditation practice have suggested that predictive processing accounts [Lutz et al, 2019;Laukkonen & Slagter, 2021;Tivadar et al, 2021], as well as measures of complexity [Schartner et al, 2017a;Escrichs et al, 2019;Luppi et al, 2021], may be fruitful for bridging experiential and neural dynamics.…”

Time-resolved dynamic computational modeling of human EEG recordings reveals gradients of generative mechanisms for the MMN response

“…The MMN is a negative wave generally peaking over fronto-central scalp electrodes between 100 and 250 milliseconds, with variations depending on the experimental design including the dimension of the deviant feature [1]. Discovered more than 40 years ago [4], it was investigated in research fields as broad as neurolinguistics [5], attention [6], altered states of consciousness [7, 8], aging [9], psychiatry [10, 11], emotions [12], psychedelics [13] or meditation [14]. However, despite its use in clinical research or as an experimental measure for many cognitive functions [15], its generative mechanisms are still widely debated.…”

Event-Related Potential Study of Recovery of Consciousness during Forced Awakening from Slow-Wave Sleep and Rapid Eye Movement Sleep

“…Specifically, in response to LGP, a local mismatch response was registered across NREM1, NREM2, and REM but with an incomplete structure, and neither the classical MMN/P3a complex nor P300 was detected [ 32 ]. During SWS, most researchers failed to find any response, even on local irregularities [ 36 , 37 ]. However, some questions are still not answered: At which point in the continuum of the transition from sleep to wakefulness emerges the processing of global irregularities?…”