Statistical learning attenuates visual activity only for attended stimuli

Abstract
Data availability
Article and author information
Metrics

Abstract

Perception and behavior can be guided by predictions, which are often based on learned statistical regularities. Neural responses to expected stimuli are frequently found to be attenuated after statistical learning. However, whether this sensory attenuation following statistical learning occurs automatically or depends on attention remains unknown. In the present fMRI study, we exposed human volunteers to sequentially presented object stimuli, in which the first object predicted the identity of the second object. We observed a reliable attenuation of neural activity for expected compared to unexpected stimuli in the ventral visual stream. Crucially, this sensory attenuation was only apparent when stimuli were attended, and vanished when attention was directed away from the predictable objects. These results put important constraints on neurocomputational theories that cast perception as a process of probabilistic integration of prior knowledge and sensory information.

Data availability

All data and code necessary to replicate the reported results are available via the following URL: http://hdl.handle.net/11633/aacg3rkw

The following data sets were generated

1. Richter D
2. de Lange FP
(2019) Attentional modulation of perceptual predictions
di.dccn.DSC_3018028.03_962.

http://hdl.handle.net/11633/aacg3rkw

Article and author information

Author details

David Richter

Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands

For correspondence
d.richter@donders.ru.nl

Competing interests
No competing interests declared.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-3404-8374
Floris P de Lange

Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Nijmegen, Nijmegen, Netherlands

Competing interests
Floris P de Lange, Reviewing editor, eLife.

"This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0002-6730-1452

Funding

Nederlandse Organisatie voor Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek (Vidi Grant 452-13-016)

Floris P de Lange

Horizon 2020 Framework Programme (ERC Starting Grant 678286)

Floris P de Lange

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Ethics

Human subjects: The study followed institutional guidelines of the local ethics committee (CMO region Arnhem-Nijmegen, The Netherlands; Protocol CMO2014/288), including informed consent of all participants.

Copyright

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.