Brains predict the future.
The brain’s habit of predicting the future interferes with our awareness of what is and understanding of what is said. Neuroscientists call it predictive encoding.
Neuroscience is increasingly gaining a new understanding of how our brains work. Our brain continually generates expectations by comparing information from context and interoception (current body state) to our prior experiences and models of the world. The other day I sampled this when I suddenly felt the barest touch on my leg below the table. As a dog owner, I expected to look beneath the table and find my dog there, perhaps licking my leg or simply having touched me moving around. My brain had the context – we were at home, and my dog was in the house – along with interoception – I was in a relaxed state, so it was unlikely to expect something unusual – and my brain matched this to my prior experiences and generated the expectation of finding my dog below the table. To make sense of the present, the brain predicts the future.
Predictions can be useful.
Expectations influence how emotions shape behavior. The emotional mind is far quicker than the rational mind. If emotions are the vehicle that thrust us forward, expectations are what get the motor up and running. Together they enable us to spring into action without pausing even a moment to consider. Would my brain have assessed the number of people who reported sighting a snake in their home this summer, as recently mentioned by the Austrian tabloids, and had constructed the expectation of finding a snake below the table, the prediction would have enabled me to spring into immediate action. Our perceptions, motor control, memory, and other brain functions depend on comparisons between actual ongoing experiences, prior experiences, and our models of the world.
Predictions can be wrong.
Prediction errors occur when brain predictions do not align with reality. In my example, this happened when I looked beneath the table expecting to find my dog and discovered that the light touch came from a smooth buckle of a bag hanging down from the chair next to me. My dog was peacefully sleeping in her favorite place across the room.
Prediction errors are a surprise.
Prediction is the brain’s conclusion at any given moment. The brain fully expects reality to pan out as it predicts. When the moment fails to pan out as predicted, the brain is surprised. Surprise is an emotion with a difference, with a dual nature. Emotional reactions are generally considered pleasant, like happiness, or unpleasant, like anger.
On the other hand, surprises can either be pleasant or unpleasant, depending on the situation and the person. Whether they are pleasant or unpleasant, they are usually very memorable due to their unexpected nature. This brings us to their core benefit:
Surprise is good for learning.
Surprises don’t always have to be significant. They can be small as well. Every day, we probably have surprises, as in unexpected occurrences and novelty. The brain is tuned to pick up the change. Differences help us remember better. Assimilating this type of information can help us make better predictions and plans about what might happen in the future. We can make more effective decisions based on our experience and assemble more unique combinations as we enhance our creativity and innovation skills.
Learning is a matter of exposure.
Optimal learning is a delicate balance between learning and remembering. Learning occurs when the brain comes across a prediction error and temporarily interrupts prediction and reduces its filters to allow more incoming data. Recollection occurs by adding the data to the brain’s database to have a broader variety to compare to for future predictions. That also explains why it generally feels like we are learning more in our youth. Our brain’s database builds with every experience we make as we grow older. This decreases the likeliness of unexpected occurrences and, with it, the likeliness of learning something new. To combat this, we can go out and seek new experiences, learn about new cultures, discover new interests, and rethink or expand on existing concepts. We can actively go out and seek prediction errors.
Predictions occur during conversations.
Ever finish someone else’s sentence? Or had someone else complete your sentence? In a way, that is a prediction in action. Even if we are polite and wait for the other person to finish speaking. Our brain continually predicts the course of the conversation down to what is about to be said.
Prediction errors seem to be omnipresent in the brain. Empirical support has been provided in perceptual, attentional, cognitive, and motivational processes. The brain ends up shaping each of these areas! We perceive the best match between current sensory input and expectation (match in the database).Unless we pay close attention, these expectations override the message and can lead to conflict without us becoming aware of the underlying dynamic.
To remain open for what is, delay prediction.
The prediction system in the brain wants to conclude as fast as possible. Apart from being beneficial in a situation of life or death, this is a way that helps the brain preserve energy. The brain is all about allostasis (energy efficiency) for the entire body. So, the moment there is a match, the brain goes for the prediction, and additional cues are blocked. I was at home and relaxed; the slight touch on my leg must be my dog under the table. An expansion of my awareness to include that my dog was in the corner of the room would have kept the prediction system comparing incoming data to come up with a different explanation for what was happening. If there is no match, our brain resorts to guessing without the usual certainty. Random guesses are also immediately erased from the database if they aren’t confirmed. In a way one could say we remain open to what is. This might also explain a child’s natural curiosity; it still has fewer data to compare. To stay open, question the prediction, and remain curious.
Beyond categorization: full-spectrum thinking.
Increasing the size of our database is another way to make it challenging to find a match. Bob Johansen calls this full-spectrum thinking and defines it as “the ability to seek patterns and clarity outside, across, beyond, or maybe even without any boxes or categories while resisting false certainty and simplistic binary choices.I don’t believe we can do away with categorization, but imagine differentiating categories with such detail that everything becomes a category for itself. That serves the same purpose. We might achieve this by continually asking ourselves: “How is this different from what we already know?” Learn more about categorization in my post Learning, Innovating, and Integrating.
An extensive database takes longer to match against and continually needs more input for prediction because more options are possible. Imagine every day around 10 am the delivery guy rings the doorbell. Then a chime at 9:45 am, or 10:15 am, will have you expect the delivery guy. Whereas having every day the doorbell ring at 10 am by someone different, from girls’ scouts selling cookies to Jehovah Witnesses to someone wanting to use the toilet to a neighbor asking to borrow the lawnmower to your daughter having forgotten her key to her girlfriend (or yours!) coming to hang out, and so on, then a chime around 10 am is simply going to have you wonder who is at the door this time. A diversity of experience can contribute to us remaining curious and open. It is about increasing incoming data and about expanding the database for comparison. The idea is to suspend prediction so that we can stay open and listen actively.
References
How prediction errors shape perception, attention, and motivation
Hanneke E. M. den Ouden, Peter Kok and Floris P. de Lange
How emotions are made, Lisa Feldmann Barrett
Expectations influence how emotions shape behavior.
Tamir, M., & Bigman, Y. E. (2018). Emotion, 18(1), 15–25.
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