Causal Evidence for Expression of Perceptual Expectations in Category-Selective Extrastriate Regions

Gandolfo, Marco; Downing, Paul E.

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.024

Cited by 41 publications

(44 citation statements)

References 55 publications

(59 reference statements)

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“…John-Saaltink et al, 2016). This finding is in line with previous work suggesting the prestimulus state of the sensory cortex biases perception (Gandolfo and Downing, 2019; Kok et al, 2017; Sherman et al, 2016; Hesselmann et al, 2008; Pajani et al, 2015; Han and VanRullen, 2017).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Prior expectations of motion direction modulate early sensory processing

Aitken

Turner

Kok

2020

Preprint

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Perception is a process of inference, integrating sensory inputs with prior expectations. However, little is known regarding the temporal dynamics of this integration. It has been proposed that expectation plays a role early in the perceptual process, by biasing early sensory processing. Alternatively, others suggest that expectations are integrated only at later, post-perceptual decision-making stages. The current study aimed to dissociate between these hypotheses. We exposed male and female human participants (N=24) to auditory cues predicting the likely direction of upcoming noisy moving dot patterns, while recording millisecond-resolved neural activity using magnetoencephalography (MEG). First, we found that participants’ reports of the moving dot directions were biased towards the direction predicted by the auditory cues. To investigate when expectations affected sensory representations, we used inverted encoding models to decode the direction represented in early sensory signals. Strikingly, the auditory cues modulated the direction represented in the MEG signal as early as 150ms after visual stimulus onset. This early neural modulation was related to perceptual effects of expectation: participants with a stronger perceptual bias towards the predicted direction also revealed a stronger reflection of the predicted direction in the MEG signal. For participants with this perceptual bias, a trial-by-trial correlation between decoded and perceived direction already emerged prior to visual stimulus onset (∼-150ms), suggesting that the pre-stimulus state of the visual cortex influences sensory processing. Together, these results suggest that prior expectations can influence perception by biasing early sensory processing, making expectation a fundamental component of the neural computations underlying perception.Significance statementPerception can be thought of as an inferential process in which our brains integrate sensory inputs with prior expectations to make sense of the world. This study investigated whether this integration occurs early or late in the process of perception. We exposed human participants to auditory cues which predicted the likely direction of visual moving dots, while recording neural activity with millisecond resolution using magnetoencephalography (MEG). Participants’ perceptual reports of the direction of the moving dots were biased towards the predicted direction. Additionally, the predicted direction modulated the neural representation of the moving dots just 150 ms after they appeared. This suggests that prior expectations affected sensory processing at very early stages, playing an integral role in the perceptual process.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Prior expectations of motion direction modulate early sensory processing

Aitken

Turner

Kok

2020

Preprint

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“…Like outlined in Bayesian accounts, perception is first biased towards prior knowledge to aid rapid generation of largely accurate perceptual experiences. This process may be operational from the point at which predictions can be made, through pre-activation of expected units [1,48,49]. However, when an event generates high surprise -as would be the case only for highly 'unexpected' events (see below)…”

Section: A Theoretical Resolutionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The Perceptual Prediction Paradox

Press

Kok

Yon

2020

Trends in Cognitive Sciences

194

209

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“…Evidence for such a mechanism has been provided by a number of neuroimaging techniques. For instance, transcranial magnetic stimulation demonstrates that disruptive pulses to sensory regions at the time of predictive cues eliminates perceptual cueing effects (Gandolfo & Downing, 2019), magnetoencephalography work demonstrates that visual events can be decoded from visual brain activity before they are presented (Kok et al, 2017), and functional magnetic resonance imaging studies indicate that sensory suppression is observed only in voxels that do not encode the presented stimuli (Kok et al, 2012;. Such predictive neural 'sharpening' processes are thought to upweight, rather than downweight, perception of expected events, enabling rapid generation of largely veridical experiences in the face of sensory noise Kersten et al, 2004;Yuille & Kersten, 2006).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Action enhances predicted touch

Thomas

Yon

Lange

et al. 2020

Preprint

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It is widely believed that predicted action outcomes are perceptually attenuated. The present experiments determined whether predictive mechanisms in fact generate attenuation, or instead enhance perception -via neural 'sharpening' mechanisms assumed to operate in sensory cognition domains outside of action. We manipulated probabilistic expectations in a force judgement task. Participants produced actions and rated the intensity of concurrent tactile forces. Experiment 1 confirmed previous findings that action outcomes are perceived less intensely than similar passive stimulation, but demonstrated more intense perception when reducing the contribution of non-predictive gating processes. Experiments 2 and 3 manipulated prediction explicitly and found that expected outcomes are perceived more, not less, intensely than unexpected outcomes. These findings challenge a central tenet of prominent motor control theories and demonstrate that sensorimotor prediction operates via qualitatively similar mechanisms to other prediction and regardless of the sensory domain.

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Causal Evidence for Expression of Perceptual Expectations in Category-Selective Extrastriate Regions

Abstract: Highlights d Expectations influence perception of visual events d Anticipatory activity in category-specific regions expresses expectations d Disruption of this activity removes effects of cues on discrimination performance

Cited by 41 publications

References 55 publications

Prior expectations of motion direction modulate early sensory processing

Prior expectations of motion direction modulate early sensory processing

The Perceptual Prediction Paradox

Action enhances predicted touch

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