Dipl.-Psych. Irina Kaltwasser

 

 

 

 

Completed project

When to learn from incorrect predictions: Long-term adjustment of expectations

Being able to predict events in one's own environment is of fundamental importance for one's ability to act. New theories even assume that the human brain tries to predict everything it perceives (Clark, 2012). In order to make a successful prediction about events, we have to estimate the probability of their occurrence; in doing so, we implicitly use previous experiences we have had in similar environments (Perruchet & Pacton, 2006). A recent study by Kühn & Schubotz (2012) showed an adjustment in dorsal frontomedian activation (Brodmann area 9) when an expected number had deviated from expectations once in the recent past; this adjustment was interpreted as a destabilization of the prediction. Using a similar paradigm extended by a statistical structure and various neurophysiological methods (electrodermal response (EDA), electroencephalogram (EEG), and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI)), the question of how the brain combines sequential information and statistical conditions to make predictions about its environment will now be investigated.

Literatur:

Clark, A. (2012). Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science. Behav. Brain Sci, 1-86.

Kühn, A. B., & Schubotz, R. I. (2012). Temporally remote destabilization of prediction after rare breaches of expectancy. Human brain mapping, 33(8), 1812-1820.

Perruchet, P., & Pacton, S. (2006). Implicit learning and statistical learning: One phenomenon, two approaches. Trends in cognitive sciences, 10(5), 233-238.

Publications

Trempler, I., Binder, E., Reuter, M., Plieger, T., Standke, I., Mecklenbrauck, F., Kaltwasser, I., Meinert, S., Forstner, A.J., Noethen, M., Rietschel, M., Stürmer, S., Dannlowski, U., Tittgemeyer, M., Lencer, R., Fink, G.R.,  Schubotz, R.I. (2022) Effects of DRD2/ANKK1 and COMT Val158Met Polymorphisms on Stabilization against and Adaptation to Unexpected Events, Cerebral Cortex, 2022, 00,1–18, doi.org/10.1093/cercor/bhac046