Neural and cognitive mechanisms of predictive coding and their interactions for perception and action

预测编码的神经和认知机制及其感知和行动的相互作用

• 批准号: RGPIN-2015-04285
• 负责人: Niemeier, Matthias
• 金额: $ 2.04万
• 依托单位: University of Toronto
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2018-01-01 至 2019-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=660947
• 关键词: Neural; cognitive; mechanisms; predictive; coding

In daily life we seldom marvel at abilities such as grabbing a cup of coffee, recognizing a friend's face, or jogging through a park. But these tasks are enormously challenging: we have to deal with overwhelming amounts of ambiguous and incomplete information entering our eyes and other senses. Why then don't we always spill coffee, ignore our friends or crash into trees? There is growing evidence that to deal with these challenges the brain behaves much like a detective who makes smart inferences. The brain uses not only available sensory "evidence," but also prior knowledge about the world to predict what the world should be like. The underlying principle is called predictive coding and recent computer models have proposed that the visual cortex may implement the principle in a hierarchy of so-called prediction modules. It is unclear, however, whether the same hierarchical system can explain any form of prediction mechanisms based on unconscious, implicit expectations as well as conscious or explicit expectations about the world, or whether different mechanisms apply. It is also unclear how visual process-es tie in with visuomotor functions. Therefore, I propose to study visual perception together with several forms of expectations, as well as vision in the context of hand and eye movements. Leading a research team of graduate and undergraduate students I will test object perception in healthy human participants using an `expected feature perception paradigm' while recording electrophysiological signals from their brain or while stimulating brain functions with magnetic pulses. ***Theme 1 will test whether effects of explicit expectations (i.e., attention to colours or shapes) and implicit expectations (e.g., transient plasticity due to repeated presentation of stimuli) interact at specific times of electrophysiological brain signals as predicted by predictive coding models or whether more complex models are required. ***Theme 2 will investigate in depth predictive effects of attention in terms of attentional capacity and stimulus similarities. ***Theme 3 will examine predictive coding principles during visually guided grasp movements. ***Theme 4 will investigate predictive coding during eye movements. ***In sum, this research will pursue a new, comprehensive approach to investigating vision. This research can be expected to give us a more complete understanding of the different forms of predictive coding in the brain. Such understanding would constitute a significant step towards a unifying theory of the visual brain as a dynamic system embedded in a complex world with important benefits for technical applications such as augmented reality.**

在日常生活中，我们很少惊叹于这样的能力，比如抓起一杯咖啡，认出朋友的脸，或者在公园里慢跑。但这些任务具有巨大的挑战性：我们必须处理进入我们眼睛和其他感官的大量模棱两可和不完整的信息。那么，为什么我们不总是洒咖啡、忽视朋友或者撞到树上呢？越来越多的证据表明，为了应对这些挑战，大脑的行为很像一名做出聪明推理的侦探。大脑不仅使用可用的感官“证据”，而且还使用关于世界的先验知识来预测世界应该是什么样子。潜在的原理被称为预测编码，最近的计算机模型提出，视觉皮质可能会在所谓的预测模块的层次结构中实现这一原理。然而，目前尚不清楚，同样的等级制度是否可以解释任何形式的预测机制，这些机制是基于无意识的、隐含的预期，以及对世界的有意识或明确的预期，或者是否适用不同的机制。目前也不清楚视觉加工与视觉运动功能之间是如何联系的。因此，我建议研究视觉感知和几种形式的预期，以及在手部和眼睛运动的背景下的视觉。我将带领一个由研究生和本科生组成的研究团队，在健康的人类受试者身上测试物体知觉，方法是在记录来自他们大脑的电生理信号的同时，或者在用磁脉冲刺激大脑功能的同时，使用一种“预期的特征知觉范式”。*主题1将测试显性预期(即，对颜色或形状的注意)和隐性预期(例如，由于反复呈现刺激而产生的瞬时可塑性)的影响是否如预测编码模型所预测的那样，在电生理脑信号的特定时间相互作用，或者是否需要更复杂的模型。*主题2将从注意力能力和刺激相似性的角度深入研究注意力的预测效应。*主题3将考察视觉引导抓握动作中的预测编码原理。*主题4将研究眼球运动过程中的预测编码。*总而言之，这项研究将寻求一种新的、全面的方法来调查视觉。这项研究有望让我们更全面地了解大脑中不同形式的预测编码。这样的理解将构成视觉大脑作为嵌入在复杂世界中的动态系统的统一理论的重要一步，对增强现实等技术应用具有重要好处。