by Zeev Nitsan
Prediction of Inputs
Our momentary perception is created from the actual input and our predictions regarding the input. When our input is partial and lacking, our brain “fills in” the gaps with predictions based on the probability of events, which is based on patterns of past memories.
Our expectations affect our interpretation of the input in real time. The prediction spreads out to the various modes of input; the predictions take place in relation to all input patterns, such as visual input and audio input—all at the same time. At the single-cell level, prediction is expressed by the start of activity within the neurons before they are activated in practice by the input. The tracks of perceptual input are two-way tracks. Expectations regarding the next input pattern that goes downward are constantly fed at the same time that input signals from the sense receptors move upward to the brain. This is a process of prediction according to input patterns that were perceived almost at the same time, combined with familiarity with similar input patterns that were encoded in our memory. The prediction takes place in various input paths: prediction regarding the next sound we will hear, the next sight we will see, etc. The neurons in charge of mediation of the sensory inputs are activated before the pattern of input signals actually arrives; when it finally arrives, a comparison is made. If the input matches the expectation, it is processed in the brain at the level in charge of routine events. When the input does not match the expectation, however, it is transferred to another brain area that serves as “exceptions committee,” which attempts to comprehend it and at the same time find similarities with rarer memory patterns known from past experience. When there is no compatibility with a certain past pattern, the new input is classified as the “new kid on the block,” and its sequences are learned anew. It seems that the prediction ability, which attempts to predict the next input pattern in advance, is an essential ability in the repertoire of our intelligence qualifications.
The process of expectations projection can be seen as the opposite of a flashback; it’s a type of flash-forward as an extrapolation of knowing the present. Most predictions take place out of the consciousness’s area of jurisdiction. The predictions are often based on approximate statistic estimates. The preeminence of man, with respect to intelligence, largely derives from man’s ability to make predictions regarding types of patterns that are more abstract and those that have a longer series of patterns. When the action is successful, and the neurons predict the pattern of incoming input correctly and repeatedly, the sequence of the input patterns is fixated as a series and becomes an ongoing representation (which is, in fact, memory in its constant figure—the engram). Learning the sequences of signals (the patterns) and their inclusion as series is an essential factor in the creation of preserved representations.
Circumstances—Dependent Matching as a Basis for Changing an Action Plan
Welcome to Realistan. When we are involved in daily “survival tasks,” our predictions aspire to grip the grounds of reality. Cycles of feedback constantly recalibrate them in an attempt to reach maximal compatibility between them and the outline of reality ground. Our inner oracle constantly attempts to predict the secrets of the future and answers the eternal question “What happens next?” with changing answers according to the direction of the wind vane of circumstances.
The brain attempts to predict the next reality appearance it is about to meet at any given moment. At any given split second, a number of possible courses of action are proposed by our brain. The top level of processing chooses one of them, and the action starts, according to the course of the winning proposal, down the slopes of the neuron column that planned the policy of the “winning proposal.” At any given moment, all neuron columns undergo adjustment in order to improve their level of attractiveness in accordance with data from the external world and inner feelings. For instance, when a task involves catching a ball, several proposals are made for activating body muscles. The premotor cortex chooses one of these proposals and prepares a “selected action plan.” At this split second, the motor behavior starts to roll according to the outline of that proposal. When this split second is over, the plan might change, and preference might be given to some other neuron column that proposes a different motor plan that is better adjusted to reality in real time.
We do not always choose the best plan, and sometimes we repent our faulty choices regarding the selected column, as when it turns out that another column had a better plan. At any given moment, several gates lead to several paths down the motor-behavior path. Some of the paths are partially overlapping. When our prediction turns out to be erroneous, our decision goes back upward in order to reach a different decision about a behavior path that will start, again, from a higher level. Changing the selected course of action is done both horizontally and vertically, which enables us to change the course at any given time.
Mental flexibility means changing courses at interchanges of the train of thought according to needs that are sometimes urgent and sometimes rare.
“Transposition” is a term taken from the world of music; it describes moving between different musical scales. While we are performing a task, our brain constantly performs mental transposition of the motor and behavioral action plan so our performance will match the circumstances as well as possible. Our brain is like a professional musician who easily performs transposition from one scale to another. Our brain is a skilled “snakes and ladders” player.
The brain often acts as a jazz pianist who improvises the sequence of fingering—the encounter between the suitable finger to the suitable key—almost in real time, while constantly projecting his expectations regarding the future direction of the music that is being played.
One of the main roles of the frontal lobes is to set up a project outline for future moves. This process is carried out, while we are skipping between various motor and behavioral action plans, in order to match them with the changing circumstances as well as we can in real time. Maximal compatibility betters the outcome. For instance, during a basketball game, there is constant matching of the angle of shooting according to our changing location on the parquet. We constantly move between alternative action plans in order to find maximal compatibility between our responses and the world of phenomena around us. The flexibility of brain processing is at the basis of this ability.
Basal Ganglia as Action-Plan Routers
At the depth of the core of our brain, there are clusters of neurons called basal ganglia. This is where action intentions materialize and become sequences of operation signals sent downward toward the muscles. The basic function of the basal ganglia is similar to super routers that select the course of the railway on which the train of action is about to ride. The prefrontal cortex outlines action plans, and the basal ganglia channel the operation signals, like train wagons that are sent to the most suitable railway; they have a crucial effect on materializing the action plan. By virtue of their function as routers, they contribute to the skipping between “alternative” action plans in accordance with the changing circumstances.
Input Prediction and Core Preservation—in Action
Despite feeling that the “world image” is experienced as coherent, and matching events in real time, the truth is that our eyes constantly move and sample the world from different angles. The brain patches together the pieces of pictures into a single, coherent picture. Our eyes examine the surrounding in jumpy movements called “saccades”—eye movements at a frequency of three times per second. Thus, a different reflection of the world is projected on our retina three times per second, but we still experience the visual experience as continuous, smooth, and devoid of pitfalls.
Another example for the brain as an entity that bridges missing information and fills in gaps is the blinking of our eyes, during which momentary darkness takes place for splits seconds—the duration of blinking. Mostly, we are not aware of the momentary darkness formed every time we blink, since our brain preserves a visual, perceptional continuity
and attaches the sights that were perceived prior to the blinking to the sights perceived afterward, and they all become a seamless continuum.
The perceptual continuum is preserved, mainly, due to compensation mechanisms of the prediction that complements the voids in the input and due to preservation of a substantial core in the presence of various appearances of the observed objects (such as different angles of vision with respect to the same object). Prediction is formed through a combination of the memory of past experiences and updated pieces of information.
The Virtual Time Machine
A mostly unconscious skill is allocating the plausible duration of time for the occurrence of a certain event. We base duration predictions both on external world events and on our brain conduct and performance of actions.
When a certain event exceeds the predicted time limits (as an unpredicted fold in the fabric of predicted chrono-architecture), we become alert and perform an “automatic check-out procedure” in order to assess the deviation.
Essence Extraction at the Service of Input Decoding
Familiarity with the sequences of signals characterizing the core of the essence of the encoded world appearance is possible through the aphorismic extraction of the input. Such an acquaintance sometimes allows for the retrieval of the information encoding layout regarding the same world manifestation, even when the information input is partial or disrupted. In other words, it makes it possible to infer the whole from the partial; the right from the disrupted.
The Role of Prediction in Processing an Unfamiliar Input
A vague or partial input, which is difficult to interpret, might sometimes form a “blind spot” in the perceptual field of vision due to its vagueness. Such a challenging input sometimes requires prediction to complete the picture. The partial contribution of the input and the complementary contribution of the prediction combined enable the production of a “comprehensive conceptual picture,” which is not necessarily reality-compatible.
Cryptanalysis of the Enigma
When we come across a situation in which all familiar rules are broken, and the phenomena seem chaotic and unpredictable, our brain switches to “intensified-operation” mode. This is the action pattern that is reflected in brain imaging (functional MRI) as multiple light spots that represent the multiple activated areas in the brain, like a mass convention of fireflies that, in an attempt to find clues that will help decipher the unfamiliar phenomenon.
The Course of a Challenging Input
A “challenging” input that does not fit in with familiar patterns is transferred to higher levels of cortical processing until it is deciphered or, alternatively, until it is classified as an “abnormal,” “breakthrough,” “game-changing” input or, alternatively, until it is deciphered as an erroneous input derived from some sensory distortion or built-in vagueness. According to common belief, such an input is the preferred input, to be processed by the right hemisphere.
The greatest mountain ranges in the world—the Pamir mountains, Karakoram mountains, and the Himalayas—formed as a result of a geological collision of forces. The tectonic plate, called the Indian Plate, moved northward and tumultuously met the tectonic plate, called the Euro-Asian Plate. The huge mountain ranges were created at the meeting point of the tectonic plates. In these areas, there are signs declaring that “continents collide here.” Metaphorically speaking, brain areas in which “continents collide,” in the sense of substantial ideas that contain conflicting contents, are the areas in charge of settling cognitive dissonances; as in the mountain ranges, here it is also a “high” area with respect to functionality, which is in charge of complex functions. At these brain areas, complex processing is able to decide between colliding pieces of information that takes place.
Environmental Stimulation as Perception-Shaper
In an experiment conducted on kittens (and we shall not refer here to the problematic moral aspect of such an experiment), the kittens were deprived of an exposure to lines or horizontal objects within the narrow window of time of the first few months of their life; their living environment was shaped in such a way that it did not include horizontal objects. This lack of exposure caused the occipital cortex, which is in charge of processing visual input, to omit from its world image, which is actually the cat’s visual world, any signs for the existence of horizontal objects. The lack of exposure to horizontal objects leads to perceiving a visual world that is vertical and diagonal, with no horizon. The mature cats that survived this experiment of selective deprivation of a sensory input as kittens later suffered from permanent impairment related to their ability to notice horizontal objects in space and respond to them. They repeatedly bumped into these objects and suffered injuries as a result. Their visual perception was disrupted in a manner that was partially irreversible.
Similar results were observed in a conditioning experiment conducted on fleas. The conditioning was related to acquired perceptual failure with respect to the space planes. Fleas are capable of jumping to a point that is sixteen times higher than the length of their body. If human beings had this ability, they would be able to reach a height of twenty-five meters by jumping. Fleas that were put into a box of matches jumped as usual and repeatedly bumped into the box roof. After a while, following multiple attempts, there were no more knockings that indicated they were hitting the roof of the box. The fleas adapted their jump to the height of the box of matches. When the fleas were released from the box prison, the conditioning did not disappear, and they kept jumping to the height of the box even when they were free to jump as high as they wished. The boundaries of their vertical world were permanently conditioned, with no return, to an artificial height that did not match their natural skills.
The following is another example of conditioning that results in behavioral fixation. In an experiment conducted in Germany, the researchers created a field of artificial blue and yellow flowers. They added honeydew only to the yellow flowers. Following repetitive wandering among the flowers, young bees that were brought to the field discovered the correlation between the color and the honeydew and, after a while, totally abandoned their visits to the blue flowers, focusing solely on the yellow ones. At this point, the researchers inverted the correlation and this time added honeydew to the blue flowers only. Contrary to the expectation that a renewed learning process will enable the bees to track the changes in the correlation, the bees continued to visit only the yellow flowers, despite recurrent disappointments. The uncompromising persistence never ended until the bees’ extinction out of hunger and exhaustion.
This acquired perceptual failure can also be found in the world of humans who undergo types of cruel conditioning. Acknowledging the processes might enable us to reduce the impact of this conditioning.
“R” and “L” Are Not in Japanese—Time Windows for Acquiring World Understanding
Exposure to “core stimulations” that create the world’s image in our brain is essential. Phonological differences between sounds of various languages create a “sound distinction,” which is unique to the speakers of a certain language. Thus, for example, native speakers of Japanese have a hard time distinguishing between the “R” sound and the “L” sound, since in the Japanese phonological environment, to which they are exposed and according to which their brain creates sound patterns, there is no need for such a distinction. When they are later exposed to a different lingual environment with a different sound lexicon, they will still find it difficult to distinguish between these two sounds.
Today we are no longer debating the question of “nature versus environment” but, rather, focusing on nature through environment. It seems that the environment is a sort of filter that enables the parts of nature that penetrate it to be expressed.
A common assumption among brain development researchers is that the time window for the best acquisition of a second language is approximately up to the age of eight. Later, it is more difficult to acquire the phonemes that characterize the language that is
not the mother tongue and internalize the different pronunciation of syllables. It seems that our mother tongue imprints rhythmic patterns in our brain that serve as a super-pattern for also processing vocal input that is not lingual.
An example of such an effect on shaping our audio perception is found in an interesting correlation between the mother tongue and absolute pitch. Among musicians who are native speakers of Mandarin Chinese, which is considered a tonal language, there is probably a much higher percentage of owners of absolute pitch in comparison to musicians who are native speakers of non-tonal languages (such as English).
A different example of the effect of environment as perception-shaper derives from the fact that we sometime sense emotional arousal but often mistake its origin.
A scenario taken from the telenovela of our life: When young men experience a rush of adrenaline during a bungee jump over a stormy river and soon after meet an attractive woman, they tend to initiate contact with her more than their peers who have not had the same bungee-jump experience. A plausible explanation for this might be that the emotional arousal triggered by the jump is ascribed, at least partially, to an arousal derived from the presence of an attractive woman near them. Due to the ascribed effect, there is more willingness on their part to initiate contact. Life events are mingled together; on the other hand, the “refreshing time” of the screen of emotional consciousness is often slower than the rhythm according to which new experiences knock on the doors of our consciousness. In such circumstances, the emotional impression of the recent past has not yet been omitted when, in fact, we are already in the midst of experiencing a present experience. The resolution of the “source of emotion spouting” is often too low, which makes us more prone to interpret the origin of a certain emotion erroneously. Some of the reasons are hidden from the eye of our consciousness and exist in the unconscious layers of our soul.