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Poster Session A: Tuesday, August 12, 1:30 – 4:30 pm, de Brug & E‑Hall

Time-Resolved EEG Decoding Reveals a Flip from Enhanced Expected to Unexpected Action Outcomes

Kirsten Rittershofer¹, Daniel Yon, Clare Press¹; ¹University College London, University of London

Presenter: Kirsten Rittershofer

It is widely proposed that our brains use expectations about what is likely in order to perceive, but it remains unclear how exactly they shape perception. Bayesian accounts propose that perception is biased towards expected events, ensuring quick and veridical experiences, whereas cancellation accounts argue that unexpected inputs are perceptually prioritized because they are informative. Here, we tested a recent proposal reconciling these views, which suggests that expectations initially bias perception towards what is expected, followed by reactive enhancement of only particularly surprising inputs that are informative for model updating. Using time-resolved decoding of EEG (electroencephalography) data, we provide evidence for this account - enhanced neural representations of expected action outcomes early in time, which later reversed to favour unexpected outcomes. These results suggest that expectations make perception both veridical and informative by exerting distinct influences across time.

Topic Area: Predictive Processing & Cognitive Control

Extended Abstract: Full Text PDF