Contents of Visual Predictions Oscillate at Alpha Frequencies
- 1Department of Imaging Neuroscience, UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, University College London, London WC1N 3AR, United Kingdom
- 2Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, Faculty Psychology and Neuroscience, Maastricht University, Maastricht 6229 EV, The Netherlands
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Author contributions: D.H. and P.K. designed research; D.H. performed research; D.H. and P.K. contributed unpublished reagents/analytic tools; D.H. and J.H. analyzed data; D.H. and P.K. wrote the paper.
Abstract
Predictions of future events have a major impact on how we process sensory signals. However, it remains unclear how the brain keeps predictions online in anticipation of future inputs. Here, we combined magnetoencephalography (MEG) and multivariate decoding techniques to investigate the content of perceptual predictions and their frequency characteristics. Thirty-two participants (23 female) were engaged in a shape discrimination task, while auditory cues predicted which specific shape would likely appear. Frequency analysis revealed significant oscillatory fluctuations of predicted shape representations in the pre-stimulus window in the alpha band (10–11 Hz). Furthermore, we found that this stimulus-specific alpha power was linked to expectation effects on shape discrimination behavior. Our findings demonstrate that sensory predictions are embedded in pre-stimulus alpha oscillations and modulate subsequent perceptual performance, providing a neural mechanism through which the brain deploys perceptual predictions.
- expectation
- perceptual inference
- pre-stimulus oscillations
- predictive processing
- stimulus templates
- time-resolved multivariate analysis
- Received March 6, 2025.
- Revision received August 28, 2025.
- Accepted August 29, 2025.
- Copyright © 2025 Hetenyi et al.
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