Predicted action consequences are perceptually facilitated before cancellation.

Abstract

Models of action control suggest that predicted action outcomes are 'cancelled' from perception, allowing agents to devote resources to more behaviorally-relevant unexpected events. These models are supported by a range of findings demonstrating that expected consequences of action are perceived less intensely than unexpected events. A key assumption of these models is that the prediction is subtracted from the sensory input. This early subtraction allows preferential processing of unexpected events from the outset of movement, thereby promoting rapid initiation of corrective actions and updating of predictive models. We tested this assumption in three psychophysical experiments. Participants rated the intensity (brightness) of observed finger movements congruent or incongruent with their own movements at different timepoints after action. Across Experiments 1 and 2, evidence of cancellation -whereby congruent events appeared less bright than incongruent events -was only found 200 ms after action, whereas an opposite effect of brighter congruent percepts was observed in earlier time ranges (50 ms after action). Experiment 3 demonstrated that this interaction was not a result of response bias. These findings suggest that 'cancellation' may not be the rapid process assumed in the literature, and that perception of predicted action outcomes is initially 'facilitated'. We speculate that the representation of our environment may in fact be optimized via two opposing processes: The primary process facilitates perception of events consistent with predictions and thereby helps us to perceive what is more likely, but a later process aids the perception of any detected events generating prediction errors to assist model updating.

Action enhances predicted touch

“…Such accounts are consistent with a range of findings that expected visual events are recognised and identified more readily (Bar, 2004;Palmer, 1975;Puri & Wojciulik, 2008), perceived with higher intensity (Han & van Rullen, 2016;, and better decoded from sensory brain activity (Heilbron et al, 2020;Kok et al, 2012) than unexpected events. Evidence from our lab and others' in the visual domain demonstrates that predictions made on the basis of action can similarly upweight perceptual processing of visual outcomes (Christensen et al, 2011;Dogge, Custers, Gayet, et al, 2019;, Yon & Press, 2017, suggesting that action predictions do not shape perception differently per se. It is also perhaps unclear why the adaptive arguments presented for downweighting (informativeness) and upweighting (veridicality) predicted percepts should apply differentially in the domain of action (see Press et al, 2020b).…”

“…Under these theories we will perceive the environment accurately, on average, despite sensory noise and the need to process information rapidly (Kersten et al, 2004). These theories have been developed outside of action domains, but in fact there is a range of evidence from visual processing during action which is consistent with them (Christensen et al, 2011;Yon et al, , 2019Yon & Press, 2017). Under these accounts, pre-activation of expected perceptual representations will generate perceptual upweighting of the expected, because higher gain on the representation is thought to be associated with a stronger perceptual experience (Carrasco et al, 2004;Wyart et al, 2012).…”

The Perceptual Prediction Paradox

“…There is some direct evidence supporting the notion of opposing perceptual processes. One psychophysical study demonstrates that while expected events are perceived with greater intensity 50 ms after presentation, this bias reverses by 200 ms such that unexpected events are perceived with greater intensity [50], and an electroencephalography (EEG) study finds neural switches at similar timescales [51]. The classically reported expectation suppression effects in the EEG and magnetocephalography (MEG) signalperhaps more in line with Cancellation accountsare also most commonly found ~150 ms after event presentation or later [30,[52][53][54][55], see also 56].…”

Perceiving your hand moving: BOLD suppression in sensory cortices and the role of the cerebellum in the detection of feedback delays

“…We believe that integrating real-world situations to experimental paradigms is of crucial importance, and more studies are needed to investigate natural movements executed in everyday life. In addition, recent investigations have found contradictory evidence for the reduced sensation and neural processing of self-generated movement consequences (Mifsud et al, 2016;Reznik, Henkin, Levy, & Mukamel, 2015;Reznik, Henkin, Schadel, & Mukamel, 2014;Roussel, Hughes, & Waszak, 2013;Yon & Press, 2017). Therefore, more studies are needed to clarify mechanisms involved in perceiving sensory inputs associated with our own actions, whether and how predictions are influenced by these actions, and the impact of cross-modal processing on subsequent perceptual experience.…”