title: Expectation and attention in hierarchical auditory prediction.
abstract: Hierarchical predictive coding suggests that attention in humans emerges from increased precision in probabilistic inference, whereas expectation biases attention in favor of contextually anticipated stimuli. We test these notions within auditory perception by independently manipulating top-down expectation and attentional precision alongside bottom-up stimulus predictability. Our findings support an integrative interpretation of commonly observed electrophysiological signatures of neurodynamics, namely mismatch negativity (MMN), P300, and contingent negative variation (CNV), as manifestations along successive levels of predictive complexity. Early first-level processing indexed by the MMN was sensitive to stimulus predictability: here, attentional precision enhanced early responses, but explicit top-down expectation diminished it. This pattern was in contrast to later, second-level processing indexed by the P300: although sensitive to the degree of predictability, responses at this level were contingent on attentional engagement and in fact sharpened by top-down expectation. At the highest level, the drift of the CNV was a fine-grained marker of top-down expectation itself. Source reconstruction of high-density EEG, supported by intracranial recordings, implicated temporal and frontal regions differentially active at early and late levels. The cortical generators of the CNV suggested that it might be involved in facilitating the consolidation of context-salient stimuli into conscious perception. These results provide convergent empirical support to promising recent accounts of attention and expectation in predictive coding.
authors.affiliation: Department of Clinical Neurosciences, University of Cambridge, Cambridge CB2 0QQ, United Kingdom. sc672@cam.ac.uk
authors.forename: Srivas
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Chennu
authors.forename: Valdas
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Noreika
authors.forename: David
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Gueorguiev
authors.forename: Alejandro
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Blenkmann
authors.forename: Silvia
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kochen
authors.forename: Agustín
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Ibáñez
authors.forename: Adrian M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Owen
authors.forename: Tristan A
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Bekinschtein
mesh_terms: D000161:Acoustic Stimulation / Q000379:methods*; D000328:Adult; D059031:Anticipation, Psychological / Q000502:physiology*; D001288:Attention / Q000502:physiology*; D001307:Auditory Perception / Q000502:physiology*; D005072:Evoked Potentials, Auditory / Q000502:physiology*; D005260:Female; D005544:Forecasting; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D010775:Photic Stimulation / Q000379:methods; D055815:Young Adult