Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next • Hacker News Board

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#21

Post by frereubu » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:34 PM UTC

This ties in quite nicely with Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIu_dJGyIQI

There are so many strands of neuroscience that show predictive coding now. There's a really nice example in the use of common vs unusual words in sentences. If you're using fMRI to scan someone while they read these two sentences:

The jam on the motorway made everything slow.

The jam on the motorway made everything sticky.

You'll see a flash of activity when people read the word "sticky" rather than the more common word in that context "slow". The theory is that when everything in the sentence proceeds as predicted there's very little need to update prior expectations, but when you come across something that goes against previous predictions it's a signal that something needs to be actively thought about.

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#22

Post by rosser » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:46 PM UTC

And then we so often get mad at the world for our own guess not being accurate...

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#23

Post by cr0sh » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:50 PM UTC

HiroshiSan wrote: post #20

teeray wrote: post #9

> Imagine picking up a glass of what you think is apple juice, only to take a sip and discover that it’s actually ginger ale. Even though you usually love the soda, this time it tastes terrible Even brains aren’t safe from speculative execution vulnerabilities

This happened to me drinking soda water, I thought it was just regular old tap water, went to take a huge sip and immediately spit it out in disgust. I normally hate soda water, but that time I especially hated it.

If you wanted to mess with a person, other substitutes could be vodka or white vinegar.

Note you could do the same for a vodka drinker; it gets more interesting if they're already in the bag...

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#24

Post by jedberg » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

cowmoo728 wrote: post #13

jedberg wrote: post #2

Although they just discovered the mechanism, we've known that this happens for quite some time. It's something you can take advantage of in UX design, for example, because if you provide a subtle queue before something new happens to trigger the brain, the new thing will be perceived faster.

The word you meant to use is cue. Cue: a thing said or done that serves as a signal Queue: a line or sequence of people waiting

You're totally right. I'd like to blame autocorrect, except that I typed it on my laptop. Instead I'll blame the fact that I was writing about queuing theory just before I made that comment.

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#25

Post by bitwize » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

npcdevops wrote: post #17

Like Meltdown and Spectre for your brain... hard to exploit, but not impossible.

Indeed, albeit Spectre exploits for the brain are so common that we even have a short word for them: we call them jokes.

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#26

Post by curious_fella_ » Wed, May 08, 2019, 4:55 PM UTC

Jeff Hawkins introduced this in 2004 "On Intelligence":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory-prediction_framework

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#27

Post by Mirioron » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:07 PM UTC

mruts wrote: post #16

kranner wrote: post #12

I’ve noticed during meditation on external sounds that for any repetitive sound, my brain immediately starts reproducing the sound internally, and then stops paying attention to that external sound and starts scanning the background for other sounds. This is the case for anything from air conditioner whine to birdsong. The meditation then becomes to interrupt the cached reproduction and really listen to every sound,…

My wife always play guitar and even after she stops I hear the song she was playing for the rest of the day. It’s very unnerving. What other parts of reality am I just filling in?

You fill in the blind spots in your vision.

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#28

Post by wpietri » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:08 PM UTC

How timely! I recently attended a nephew's soccer game. Having never played, I didn't really know what was going on. It seemed to me that I had a much harder time perceiving what happened; I was forever asking someone to tell me what they saw, even though I was looking at the same thing. If a lot of perception is predictive based on previous experience, it makes sense that I felt like I was half blind.

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#29

Post by mksha » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:09 PM UTC

jedberg wrote: post #24

cowmoo728 wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The word you meant to use is cue. Cue: a thing said or done that serves as a signal Queue: a line or sequence of people waiting

You're totally right. I'd like to blame autocorrect, except that I typed it on my laptop. Instead I'll blame the fact that I was writing about queuing theory just before I made that comment.

Thinking of a subtle queue of cues

Re: Brains Speed Up Perception by Guessing What’s Next

#30

Post by fwip » Wed, May 08, 2019, 5:15 PM UTC

frereubu wrote: post #21

This ties in quite nicely with Karl Friston's Free Energy Principle: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIu_dJGyIQI There are so many strands of neuroscience that show predictive coding now. There's a really nice example in the use of common vs unusual words in sentences. If you're using fMRI to scan someone while they read these two sentences: The jam on the motorway made everything slow. The jam on the motorway made e…

If anyone is interested in more sentences like these, check out garden path sentences.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garden-path_sentence