The Predictive Processing Hypothesis

2018 ◽  
pp. 128-146
Author(s):  
Jakob Hohwy
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Processing ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Central Concept ◽  
Initial Impression ◽  
4E Cognition ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Perception Action ◽  
Processing Framework

Prediction may be a central concept for understanding perceptual and cognitive processing. Contemporary theoretical neuroscience formalizes the role of prediction in terms of probabilistic inference. Perception, action, attention, and learning may then be unified as aspects of predictive processing in the brain. This chapter first explains the sense in which predictive processing is inferential and representational. Then follows an exploration of how the predictive processing framework relates to a series of considerations in favor of enactive, embedded, embodied, and extended cognition (4E cognition). The initial impression may be that predictive processing is too representational and inferential to fit well to 4E cognition. But, in fact, predictive processing encompasses many phenomena prevalent in 4E approaches, while remaining both inferential and representational.

Priors and Prejudice: How prior knowledge shapes intergroup perception

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hugh McGovern ◽  
Marte Otten
Keyword(s):  
Social Psychology ◽  
Prior Knowledge ◽  
Cognitive Processes ◽  
Social Neuroscience ◽  
Intergroup Bias ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Intergroup Perception ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Processing Framework

Bayesian processing has become a popular framework by which to understand cognitive processes. However, relatively little has been done to understand how Bayesian processing in the brain can be applied to understanding intergroup cognition. We assess how categorization and evaluation processes unfold based on priors about the ethnic outgroup being perceived. We then consider how the precision of prior knowledge about groups differentially influence perception depending on how the information about that group was learned affects the way in which it is recalled. Finally, we evaluate the mechanisms of how humans learn information about other ethnic groups and assess how the method of learning influences future intergroup perception. We suggest that a predictive processing framework for assessing prejudice could help accounting for seemingly disparate findings on intergroup bias from social neuroscience, social psychology, and evolutionary psychology. Such an integration has important implications for future research on prejudice at the interpersonal, intergroup, and societal levels.

The Embodiment of Concepts

2018 ◽  
pp. 640-660
Author(s):  
Michiel Van Elk ◽  
Harold Bekkering
Keyword(s):  
Prediction Error ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Prediction Errors ◽  
Conceptual Representation ◽  
Recurrent Processing ◽  
Different Dimensions ◽  
Prior Models ◽  
Processing Framework

We characterize theories of conceptual representation as embodied, disembodied, or hybrid according to their stance on a number of different dimensions: the nature of concepts, the relation between language and concepts, the function of concepts, the acquisition of concepts, the representation of concepts, and the role of context. We propose to extend an embodied view of concepts, by taking into account the importance of multimodal associations and predictive processing. We argue that concepts are dynamically acquired and updated, based on recurrent processing of prediction error signals in a hierarchically structured network. Concepts are thus used as prior models to generate multimodal expectations, thereby reducing surprise and enabling greater precision in the perception of exemplars. This view places embodied theories of concepts in a novel predictive processing framework, by highlighting the importance of concepts for prediction, learning and shaping categories on the basis of prediction errors.

scholarly journals Active interoceptive inference and the emotional brain

2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1708) ◽  
pp. 20160007 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anil K. Seth ◽  
Karl J. Friston
Keyword(s):  
Functional Anatomy ◽  
Generative Models ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Clinical Neuroscience ◽  
Autonomic Reflexes ◽  
Embodied Self ◽  
Bodily States ◽  
Theoretical Issues ◽  
The Brain

We review a recent shift in conceptions of interoception and its relationship to hierarchical inference in the brain. The notion of interoceptive inference means that bodily states are regulated by autonomic reflexes that are enslaved by descending predictions from deep generative models of our internal and external milieu. This re-conceptualization illuminates several issues in cognitive and clinical neuroscience with implications for experiences of selfhood and emotion. We first contextualize interoception in terms of active (Bayesian) inference in the brain, highlighting its enactivist (embodied) aspects. We then consider the key role of uncertainty or precision and how this might translate into neuromodulation. We next examine the implications for understanding the functional anatomy of the emotional brain, surveying recent observations on agranular cortex. Finally, we turn to theoretical issues, namely, the role of interoception in shaping a sense of embodied self and feelings. We will draw links between physiological homoeostasis and allostasis, early cybernetic ideas of predictive control and hierarchical generative models in predictive processing. The explanatory scope of interoceptive inference ranges from explanations for autism and depression, through to consciousness. We offer a brief survey of these exciting developments. This article is part of the themed issue ‘Interoception beyond homeostasis: affect, cognition and mental health’.

scholarly journals Social Robots to Test Flexibility of Human Social Cognition

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 1203-1211 ◽  
Author(s):  
Agnieszka Wykowska
Keyword(s):  
Social Cognition ◽  
Social Robots ◽  
Action Representation ◽  
Cognitive Mechanisms ◽  
Human Agent ◽  
New Type ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Psychological Experiments ◽  
Perception Action

AbstractAs the field of social robotics has been dynamically growing and expanding over various areas of research and application, in which robots can be of assistance and companionship for humans, this paper offers a different perspective on a role that social robots can also play, namely the role of informing us about flexibility of human mechanisms of social cognition. The paper focuses on studies in which robots have been used as a new type of “stimuli” in psychological experiments to examine whether similar mechanisms of social cognition would be activated in interaction with a robot, as would be elicited in interaction with another human. Analysing studies in which a direct comparison has been made between a robot and a human agent, the paper examines whether for robot agents, the brain re-uses the same mechanisms that have been developed for interaction with other humans in terms of perception, action representation, attention and higher-order social cognition. Based on this analysis, the paper concludes that the human socio-cognitive mechanisms, in adult brains, are sufficiently flexible to be re-used for robotic agents, at least for those that have some level of resemblance to humans.

The Many Faces of Empathy: Parsing Empathic Phenomena through a Proximate, Dynamic-Systems View of Representing the Other in the Self

2012 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 24-33 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephanie D. Preston ◽  
Alicia J. Hofelich
Keyword(s):  
Dynamic Systems ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Personal Distress ◽  
Early Processing ◽  
The Many ◽  
Systems View ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Perception Action

A surfeit of research confirms that people activate personal, affective, and conceptual representations when perceiving the states of others. However, researchers continue to debate the role of self–other overlap in empathy due to a failure to dissociate neural overlap, subjective resonance, and personal distress. A perception–action view posits that neural-level overlap is necessary during early processing for all social understanding, but need not be conscious or aversive. This neural overlap can subsequently produce a variety of states depending on the context and degree of common experience and emotionality. We outline a framework for understanding the interrelationship between neural and subjective overlap, and among empathic states, through a dynamic-systems view of how information is processed in the brain and body.

The Regularity Account of Phenomenal Unity

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Wanja Wiese
Keyword(s):  
Conscious Experience ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Formal Description ◽  
Rigorous Formulation ◽  
Formal Concepts ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Processing Framework ◽  
Phenomenal Unity

This chapter presents the regularity account of phenomenal unity (RPU). The basic idea of RPU is that when the brain tracks a regularity that is predictive of different features (or of different objects or events), there will be an experienced connection between those features (or the respective objects or events). We can then say that the regularity connects those features (or objects or events). According to RPU, unity comes in degrees, and in ordinary conscious experience we find a hierarchy of experienced wholes. This chapter provides a preliminary taxonomy of experienced wholes, with many examples. Drawing on formal concepts of the predictive processing framework, a formal description of possible computational underpinnings of experienced wholeness is given. Finally, a rigorous formulation of the mélange model (first proposed in chapter 4) is provided.

Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Matteo Colombo ◽  
Liz Irvine ◽  
Mog Stapleton
Keyword(s):  
Distributed Processing ◽  
Extended Mind ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Andy Clark ◽  
Cognitive Scientist ◽  
Mind And Brain ◽  
Opening Up ◽  
Intense Debate ◽  
Processing Framework

Andy Clark is a leading philosopher and cognitive scientist. His work has been wide-ranging and inspiring. The extended mind hypothesis, the power of parallel distributed processing, the role of language in opening up novel paths for thinking, the flexible interface between biological minds and artificial technologies, the significance of representation in explanations of intelligent behaviour, the promise of the predictive processing framework to unify the cognitive sciences: these are just some of the ideas illuminated by Clark’s work that have sparked intense debate across the sciences of mind and brain. This introduction puts into focus some of the major motifs running through Clark’s work and outlines the content and structure of the volume.

scholarly journals Spotlight commentary: REBUS and the anarchic brain

2020 ◽  
Vol 2020 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tehseen Noorani ◽  
Ben Alderson-Day
Keyword(s):  
Contextual Factors ◽  
Mechanisms Of Action ◽  
Unified Model ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Altered States ◽  
The Brain ◽  
Processing Framework

Abstract In ‘REBUS and the Anarchic Brain: Towards a Unified Model of the Brain Action of Psychedelics’, Carhart-Harris and Friston offer an important analysis of what the predictive processing framework has to offer our understanding of psychedelic experiences, providing an invaluable ground for psychedelic psychiatry. While applauding this, we encourage paying greater attention to contextual factors shaping extreme experiences and their sequalae, and suggest that the authors’ comparisons with certain non-psychedelic altered states may overlook more informative parallels that can be drawn elsewhere. Addressing both points will prove fruitful, ultimately, in identifying the mechanisms of action of greatest interest in psychedelic experiences.

4E Cognition

2018 ◽  
pp. 2-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Albert Newen ◽  
Shaun Gallagher ◽  
Leon De Bruin
Keyword(s):  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Mental Representations ◽  
Extended Cognition ◽  
Mental Phenomenon ◽  
4E Cognition ◽  
Conceptual Distinction ◽  
The Mind ◽  
Common Understanding

The Introduction starts with offering definitions of the central 4E features, that is, the features of embodied, embedded, enacted, and extended cognition. To set the stage, we sketch the conceptual distinction that characterizes the role of these features: are they only causally influencing a mental phenomenon or are some of them constituting it? We suggest that we can no longer presuppose a common understanding of X being constitutive for P as X being necessary in all possible worlds for P. This metaphysical understanding is increasingly challenged. We also clarify that the question about the role of mental representations needs an independent answer from the question about the role of the 4E features. After a short outline of the central concepts, we present an overview of the nine sections and outline their importance for the debate concerning the role of 4E features in thinking about the mind.

scholarly journals Disentangling predictive processing in the brain: a meta-analytic study in favour of a predictive network

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda Ficco ◽  
Lorenzo Mancuso ◽  
Jordi Manuello ◽  
Alessia Teneggi ◽  
Donato Liloia ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Inferior Frontal Gyrus ◽  
Predictive Coding ◽  
Likelihood Estimation ◽  
Brain Regions ◽  
Predictive Processing ◽  
Spatial Convergence ◽  
Large Scale Networks ◽  
The Brain

AbstractAccording to the predictive coding (PC) theory, the brain is constantly engaged in predicting its upcoming states and refining these predictions through error signals. Despite extensive research investigating the neural bases of this theory, to date no previous study has systematically attempted to define the neural mechanisms of predictive coding across studies and sensory channels, focussing on functional connectivity. In this study, we employ a coordinate-based meta-analytical approach to address this issue. We first use the Activation Likelihood Estimation (ALE) algorithm to detect spatial convergence across studies, related to prediction error and encoding. Overall, our ALE results suggest the ultimate role of the left inferior frontal gyrus and left insula in both processes. Moreover, we employ a meta-analytic connectivity method (Seed-Voxel Correlations Consensus). This technique reveals a large, bilateral predictive network, which resembles large-scale networks involved in task-driven attention and execution. In sum, we find that: (i) predictive processing seems to occur more in certain brain regions than others, when considering different sensory modalities at a time; (ii) there is no evidence, at the network level, for a distinction between error and prediction processing.

Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document