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Out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing

Thoughts that appear to come to us ‘out of the blue’ or ‘out of nowhere’ are a familiar aspect of mental experience. Such thoughts tend to elicit feelings of surprise and spontaneity. Although we are beginning to understand the neural processes that underlie the arising of such thoughts, little is k...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Mills, Caitlin, Zamani, Andre, White, Rebecca, Christoff, Kalina
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: The Royal Society 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7741073/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33308075
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0692
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author Mills, Caitlin
Zamani, Andre
White, Rebecca
Christoff, Kalina
author_facet Mills, Caitlin
Zamani, Andre
White, Rebecca
Christoff, Kalina
author_sort Mills, Caitlin
collection PubMed
description Thoughts that appear to come to us ‘out of the blue’ or ‘out of nowhere’ are a familiar aspect of mental experience. Such thoughts tend to elicit feelings of surprise and spontaneity. Although we are beginning to understand the neural processes that underlie the arising of such thoughts, little is known about what accounts for their peculiar phenomenology. Here, we focus on one central aspect of this phenomenology—the experience of surprise at their occurrence, as it relates to internal probabilistic predictions regarding mental states. We introduce a distinction between two phenomenologically different types of transitions in thought content: (i) abrupt transitions, which occur at surprising times but lead to unsurprising thought content, and (ii) wayward transitions, which occur at surprising times and also lead to surprising thought content. We examine these two types of transitions using a novel approach that combines probabilistic and predictive processing concepts and principles. We employ two different probability metrics—transition and occurrence probability—to characterize and differentiate between abrupt and wayward transitions. We close by discussing some potentially beneficial ways in which these two kinds of transitions in thought content may contribute to mental function, and how they may be implemented at the neural level. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation’.
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spelling pubmed-77410732021-01-06 Out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing Mills, Caitlin Zamani, Andre White, Rebecca Christoff, Kalina Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci Articles Thoughts that appear to come to us ‘out of the blue’ or ‘out of nowhere’ are a familiar aspect of mental experience. Such thoughts tend to elicit feelings of surprise and spontaneity. Although we are beginning to understand the neural processes that underlie the arising of such thoughts, little is known about what accounts for their peculiar phenomenology. Here, we focus on one central aspect of this phenomenology—the experience of surprise at their occurrence, as it relates to internal probabilistic predictions regarding mental states. We introduce a distinction between two phenomenologically different types of transitions in thought content: (i) abrupt transitions, which occur at surprising times but lead to unsurprising thought content, and (ii) wayward transitions, which occur at surprising times and also lead to surprising thought content. We examine these two types of transitions using a novel approach that combines probabilistic and predictive processing concepts and principles. We employ two different probability metrics—transition and occurrence probability—to characterize and differentiate between abrupt and wayward transitions. We close by discussing some potentially beneficial ways in which these two kinds of transitions in thought content may contribute to mental function, and how they may be implemented at the neural level. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Offline perception: voluntary and spontaneous perceptual experiences without matching external stimulation’. The Royal Society 2021-02-01 2020-12-14 /pmc/articles/PMC7741073/ /pubmed/33308075 http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0692 Text en © 2020 The Authors. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Published by the Royal Society under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/, which permits unrestricted use, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Articles
Mills, Caitlin
Zamani, Andre
White, Rebecca
Christoff, Kalina
Out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing
title Out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing
title_full Out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing
title_fullStr Out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing
title_full_unstemmed Out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing
title_short Out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing
title_sort out of the blue: understanding abrupt and wayward transitions in thought using probability and predictive processing
topic Articles
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7741073/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33308075
http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0692
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