Abstract
Stimulus-evoked neural activity is attenuated on stimulus repetition (repetition suppression), a phenomenon that is attributed to largely automatic processes in sensory neurons. By manipulating the likelihood of stimulus repetition, we found that repetition suppression in the human brain was reduced when stimulus repetitions were improbable (and thus, unexpected). Our data suggest that repetition suppression reflects a relative reduction in top-down perceptual 'prediction error' when processing an expected, compared with an unexpected, stimulus.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Access options
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 print issues and online access
$209.00 per year
only $17.42 per issue
Buy this article
- Purchase on Springer Link
- Instant access to full article PDF
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Grill-Spector, K., Henson, R. & Martin, A. Trends Cogn. Sci. 10, 14–23 (2006).
Henson, R.N. Prog. Neurobiol. 70, 53–81 (2003).
Miller, E.K., Li, L. & Desimone, R. Science 254, 1377–1379 (1991).
Wiggs, C.L. & Martin, A. Curr. Opin. Neurobiol. 8, 227–233 (1998).
Grill-Spector, K. & Malach, R. Acta Psychol. (Amst.) 107, 293–321 (2001).
Kourtzi, Z. & Kanwisher, N. Science 293, 1506–1509 (2001).
Desimone, R. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93, 13494–13499 (1996).
Friston, K. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. Lond. B 360, 815–836 (2005).
Henson, R., Shallice, T. & Dolan, R. Science 287, 1269–1272 (2000).
Kanwisher, N., McDermott, J. & Chun, M.M. J. Neurosci. 17, 4302–4311 (1997).
Murray, S.O. & Wojciulik, E. Nat. Neurosci. 7, 70–74 (2004).
Friston, K., Kilner, J. & Harrison, L. J. Physiol. (Paris) 100, 70–87 (2006).
Bar, M. & Aminoff, E. Neuron 38, 347–358 (2003).
Kersten, D., Mamassian, P. & Yuille, A. Annu. Rev. Psychol. 55, 271–304 (2004).
Summerfield, C. & Koechlin, E. Neuron published online, doi: 10.1016/j.neuron.2008.05.21 (2008).
Acknowledgements
We are grateful to E. Koechlin and S. Kouider for helpful comments on an earlier version of this manuscript. This work was supported in part by a grant from the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke (NS30863, M.-M.M.).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Contributions
C.S., T.E., E.H.T. and M.-M.M. conceived of the experiment, C.S. and T.E. designed the experiment, T.E., E.H.T. and J.M.M. collected the data, T.E. analyzed the data and C.S. and T.E. wrote the paper.
Corresponding author
Supplementary information
Supplementary Text and Figures
Supplementary Figures 1 and 2, Supplementary Table 1 and Supplementary Methods (PDF 337 kb)
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Summerfield, C., Trittschuh, E., Monti, J. et al. Neural repetition suppression reflects fulfilled perceptual expectations. Nat Neurosci 11, 1004–1006 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2163
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nn.2163
This article is cited by
-
Effects of expectation on face perception and its association with expertise
Scientific Reports (2024)
-
Location-specific deviant responses to object sequences in macaque inferior temporal cortex
Scientific Reports (2024)
-
Multivariate functional neuroimaging analyses reveal that strength-dependent face expectations are represented in higher-level face-identity areas
Communications Biology (2023)
-
Expectation violations enhance neuronal encoding of sensory information in mouse primary visual cortex
Nature Communications (2023)
-
Art Value Creation and Destruction
Integrative Psychological and Behavioral Science (2023)