Attention is required for canonical brain signature of prediction error despite early encoding of the stimuli

Alie G Male; Robert P O'Shea

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3001866

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Attention is required for canonical brain signature of prediction error despite early encoding of the stimuli

Journal article

Open access

Peer reviewed

Attention is required for canonical brain signature of prediction error despite early encoding of the stimuli

Alie G Male and Robert P O'Shea

PLoS biology, Vol.21(6), e3001866

2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3001866

PMID: 37339145

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Abstract

Auditory Perception

Brain

Electroencephalography

Humans

Reproducibility of Results

Visual Perception

Prediction error is a basic component of predictive-coding theory of brain processing. According to the theory, each stage of brain processing of sensory information generates a model of the current sensory input; subsequent input is compared against the model and only if there is a mismatch, a prediction error, is further processing performed. Recently, Smout and colleagues found that a signature of prediction error, the visual (v) mismatch negativity (MMN), for a fundamental property of visual input-its orientation-was absent without endogenous attention on the stimuli. This is remarkable because the weight of evidence for MMNs from audition and vision is that they occur without endogenous attention. To resolve this discrepancy, we conducted an experiment addressing 2 alternative explanations for Smout and colleagues' finding: that it was from a lack of reproducibility or that participants' visual systems did not encode the stimuli when attention was on something else. We conducted a similar experiment to that of Smout and colleagues. We showed 21 participants sequences of identically oriented Gabor patches, standards, and, unpredictably, otherwise identical, Gabor patches differing in orientation by ±15°, ±30°, and ±60°, deviants. To test whether participants encoded the orientation of the standards, we varied the number of standards preceding a deviant, allowing us to search for a decrease in activity with the number of repetitions of standards-repetition suppression. We diverted participants' attention from the oriented stimuli with a central, letter-detection task. We reproduced Smout and colleagues' finding of no vMMN without endogenous attention, strengthening their finding. We found that our participants showed repetition suppression: They did encode the stimuli preattentively. We also found early processing of deviants. We discuss various explanations why the earlier processing did not extend into the vMMN time window, including low precision of prediction.

Details

Title: Attention is required for canonical brain signature of prediction error despite early encoding of the stimuli
Authors/Creators: Alie G Male - University of California, Irvine
Robert P O'Shea - University of Leipzig
Publication Details: PLoS biology, Vol.21(6), e3001866
Publisher: PLOS
Identifiers: 991005589869507891
Murdoch Affiliation: School of Psychology
Language: English
Resource Type: Journal article

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Collaboration types: Domestic collaboration; International collaboration
Citation topics: 1 Clinical & Life Sciences; 1.7 Neuroscanning; 1.7.968 Mismatch Negativity
Web Of Science research areas: Biochemistry & Molecular Biology; Biology
ESI research areas: Biology & Biochemistry