Perception of the difference between past and present stimulus

  • A popular model for sensory processing, known as predictive coding, proposes that incoming signals are iteratively compared with top-down predictions along a hierarchical processing scheme. At each step, error signals arising from differences between actual input and prediction are forwarded and recurrently minimized by updating internal models to finally be "explained away". However, the neuronal mechanisms underlying such computations and their limitations in processing speed are largely unknown. Further, it remains unclear at which step of cortical processing prediction errors are explained away, if at all. In the present study, human subjects briefly viewed the superposition of two orthogonally oriented gratings followed by abrupt removal of one orientation after either 33 or 200 milliseconds. Instead of strictly seeing the remaining orientation, observers report rarely but highly significantly an illusory percept of the arithmetic difference between previous and actual orientations. Previous findings in cats using the identical paradigm suggest that such difference signals are inherited from first steps of visual cortical processing. In light of early modeling accounts of predictive coding, in which visual neurons were interpreted as residual error detectors signaling the difference between actual input and its temporal prediction based on past input, our data may indicate continued access to residual errors. Such strategy permits time-critical perceptual decision making across a spectrum of competing internal signals up to the highest levels of processing. Thus, the occasional appearance of a prediction error-like illusory percept may uncover maintained flexibility at perceptual decision stages when subjects cope with highly dynamic and ambiguous visual stimuli.

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Metadaten
Author:Robert StaadtORCiDGND, Sebastian T. PhilippGND, Joschka L. CremersGND, Jürgen KornmeierGND, Dirk JanckeORCiDGND
URN:urn:nbn:de:hbz:294-76829
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0232349
Parent Title (English):PLoS ONE
Subtitle (English):a rare orientation illusion may indicate incidental access to prediction error-like signals
Publisher:Public Library of Science
Place of publication:San Francisco
Document Type:Article
Language:English
Date of Publication (online):2020/11/27
Date of first Publication:2020/05/04
Publishing Institution:Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universitätsbibliothek
Volume:15
Issue:5, Article e0232349
First Page:e0232349-1
Last Page:e0232349-15
Institutes/Facilities:Institut für Neuroinformatik, Lehrstuhl Theorie kognitiver Systeme
Research Department of Neuroscience
Sonderforschungsbereich 874, Integration und Repräsentation sensorischer Prozesse
open_access (DINI-Set):open_access
Licence (English):License LogoCreative Commons - CC BY 4.0 - Attribution 4.0 International