Topic
Predictive coding research, explained
7 open-access predictive coding studies, each with a flashcard deck and a quiz.
- How the brain processes unexpected touch
The anterior insula acts as a central hub that updates our awareness of unexpected physical sensations by balancing incoming sensory signals with top-down expectations from prefrontal regions.
- How does global visual context affect the primary visual cortex?
When moving visual elements form a predictable pattern, brain activity decreases in early visual processing areas but increases in a higher-level visual area.
- How expectation and attention interact to process pain in the brain
Expectation violations and focused attention both amplify pain processing by boosting the excitability of sensory-processing neurons in the somatosensory cortex.
- Does expectation affect brain responses to repeated objects?
When people expect to see an object repeated, the brain's visual processing regions show a significantly reduced response, but only in the left hemisphere.
- Why do sounds we make ourselves seem quieter to the brain?
Before a self-triggered sound, auditory cortex showed stronger alpha rhythms, and people with a bigger alpha boost showed a bigger dampening of the brain's response to the sound.
- Does the brain predict when a story character will come back?
When a sentence structure made a character's return more predictable, the brain's response to that return was dampened in dorsal-stream regions, as predictive coding expects.
- Does a more predictable background make surprises bigger in the brain?
The same rare tone produced a larger mismatch-like brain response when the surrounding sound sequence was more stable and predictable.