On the role of expectation in visual perception: A top-down view of early visual cortex
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1
Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Insitute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, The Netherlands
Perception is not solely determined by the light that hits our eyes. Instead, what we perceive is strongly influenced by our prior knowledge of the world. I will discuss several ways in which prior expectations influence sensory processing. Using fMRI in conjunction with multivariate techniques, I will show that valid prior expectations concurrently enhance stimulus representations and reduce stimulus-evoked activity in V1. This suppression of neural activity by expectation seems at odds with the enhancing effect reported in Posner paradigms, where expectation is used to manipulate attention. However, this seeming contradiction can be resolved by recent predictive coding models wherein attention and expectation interact. Here, I will provide empirical evidence that supports such a view.
Predictions do not only pertain to what is likely to happen in the near future, but may also occur across different layers of the visual cortex hierarchy. For example, in the famous Kanizsa triangle, higher-order visual areas may detect an (illusory) shape and send predictive feedback to those neurons in lower order visual areas that are expected to detect the lower level features that make up the shape. According to predictive coding theories, the effects of such feedback should depend on whether or not it is met by congruent bottom-up input. In line with this, using fMRI in conjunction with a novel retinotopic reconstruction method, we find evidence for enhanced activity of neurons whose receptive fields lie on the illusory shape, while the response to the local elements inducing the shape is suppressed.
Acknowledgements
We thank Serge Dumoulin and Ben Harvey for assistance with the pRF analysis and Nathalie Serafin with assistance during data acquisition. This study was supported by The Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research (NWO VENI, awarded to F.P.d.L.) and the James S. McDonnell Foundation (JSMF Scholar Award for Understanding Human Cognition, awarded to F.P.d.L.).
Keywords:
fMRI,
predictive coding,
reconstruction,
perceptual inference
Conference:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII), Brisbane, Queensland, Australia, 27 Jul - 31 Jul, 2014.
Presentation Type:
Symposia
Topic:
Attention
Citation:
Kok
P and
De Lange
FP
(2015). On the role of expectation in visual perception: A top-down view of early visual cortex.
Conference Abstract:
XII International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON-XII).
doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2015.217.00427
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Received:
14 Apr 2015;
Published Online:
24 Apr 2015.
*
Correspondence:
Dr. Peter Kok, Radboud University Nijmegen, Donders Insitute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Nijmegen, 6525EN, The Netherlands, p.kok@ucl.ac.uk