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Science 24 November 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5803, pp. 1311 - 1314
DOI: 10.1126/science.1132028
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Reports

Predictive Codes for Forthcoming Perception in the Frontal Cortex

Christopher Summerfield,1,2* Tobias Egner,3,4 Matthew Greene,1 Etienne Koechlin,2 Jennifer Mangels,1 Joy Hirsch3,5

Incoming sensory information is often ambiguous, and the brain has to make decisions during perception. "Predictive coding" proposes that the brain resolves perceptual ambiguity by anticipating the forthcoming sensory environment, generating a template against which to match observed sensory evidence. We observed a neural representation of predicted perception in the medial frontal cortex, while human subjects decided whether visual objects were faces or not. Moreover, perceptual decisions about faces were associated with an increase in top-down connectivity from the frontal cortex to face-sensitive visual areas, consistent with the matching of predicted and observed evidence for the presence of faces.

1 Department of Psychology, Columbia University, 1190 Amsterdam Avenue, New York, NY 10027, USA.
2 INSERM U742, Département d'Études Cognitives, Ecole Normale Superieure, 29, Rue d'Ulm, Paris, 75005, France.
3 Functional MRI Research Center, Neurological Institute, Columbia University, 710 West 168 Street, New York, NY 10032, USA.
4 Cognitive Neurology and Alzheimer's Disease Center, Feinberg School of Medicine, Northwestern University, 320 East Superior, Searle 11, Chicago, IL 60611, USA.
5 Center for Neurobiology and Behavior, Neurological Institute, Columbia University, 710 West 168 Street, New York, NY 10032, USA.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: summerfd{at}paradox.columbia.edu

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