加州大学Timothy Q. Gentner研究团队取得一项新突破。他们的研究发现期望驱动的感官适应支持在分类知觉中增强的敏锐度。相关论文于2025年3月13日发表在《自然—神经科学》杂志上。

研究团队训练欧洲椋鸟在预期的和意外的发音上下文中对含糊的歌曲音节进行分类。小组展示了鸟类使用概率，贝叶斯整合来分类音节，利用他们的期望来稳定他们的感知行为。

然而，听觉感觉神经群并不反映这种整合。相反，期望增强了刺激空间高概率区域的听觉感觉神经元的敏锐度。这种调制不同于在运动区域观察到的典型模式，在运动区域，贝叶斯整合的感觉输入和期望占主导地位。他们的研究结果表明，外围感觉系统通过期望来改善感觉表征并保持对世界的高保真表征，从而允许下游电路灵活地将这些信息与期望结合起来，从而驱动行为。

研究人员表示，期望可以以看似矛盾的方式影响感知，要么通过将注意力引导到预期刺激上并增强感知敏锐度，要么通过在预期刺激类别内稳定感知并降低敏锐度。支持这些期望双重作用的神经机制尚不清楚。

附：英文原文

Title: Expectation-driven sensory adaptations support enhanced acuity during categorical perception

Author: Sainburg, Tim, McPherson, Trevor S., Arneodo, Ezequiel M., Rudraraju, Srihita, Turvey, Michael, Theilman, Bradley H., Tostado Marcos, Pablo, Thielk, Marvin, Gentner, Timothy Q.

Issue&Volume: 2025-03-13

Abstract: Expectations can influence perception in seemingly contradictory ways, either by directing attention to expected stimuli and enhancing perceptual acuity or by stabilizing perception and diminishing acuity within expected stimulus categories. The neural mechanisms supporting these dual roles of expectation are not well understood. Here, we trained European starlings to classify ambiguous song syllables in both expected and unexpected acoustic contexts. We show that birds employ probabilistic, Bayesian integration to classify syllables, leveraging their expectations to stabilize their perceptual behavior. However, auditory sensory neural populations do not reflect this integration. Instead, expectation enhances the acuity of auditory sensory neurons in high-probability regions of the stimulus space. This modulation diverges from patterns typically observed in motor areas, where Bayesian integration of sensory inputs and expectations predominates. Our results suggest that peripheral sensory systems use expectation to improve sensory representations and maintain high-fidelity representations of the world, allowing downstream circuits to flexibly integrate this information with expectations to drive behavior.

DOI: 10.1038/s41593-025-01899-1

Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-025-01899-1