Azhir Mahmood  🚀 🤖 🧬 🧠 🪐

Yes, schemas alter perception. This is a well known phenomenon in cognitive psych. Again, I'm not convinced this is a strong argument for predictive processing because an expectation reduces degrees of freedom for after-the-fact decoding, making it easier.

No, again, I think you're missing the point. It isn't after the fact decoding - it's real time decoding! In my (subjective) it alters your instantaneous processing, no time-lag. Of course, that's not a scientific argument, but the OP was an off-handed remark, not a manuscript...

You're assuming that what you perceive as instantaneous is actually so, but you cannot trust your sense of perceived time, especially when it comes to simultaneity. So it seems instant to you but your brain has already had hundreds of milliseconds to chew on that information. >

I'm sure you've heard of the adage that consciousness is a story that we make up after the fact. The words settle into an interpretation in your head over time but when it's fast (because you have expectation), you can't feel that settling process happen so it seems instant.

I'm sorry to be pedantic about a fun and real phenomenon, but it's important to be clear about when something is or isn't strong evidence for something. Maybe I'm not thinking about this the right way, but I can't see why this is evidence for prediction (over other likely ideas)

I understand all of this, and yes, you're being pedantic. But, I maintain (on a personal, non-scientific level) that the experience of hearing something immediately and hearing something, then figuring out what it was, *feels* very different.

And what I experience when I can predict what's going to be said is *hearing* it, not just figuring it out post-hoc. Of course, my phenomenology may be misleading here, but that's why this was a tweet and not a paper.

Of course it feels different to have that immediate sensation of understanding, and it does indicate some differences in the underlying processing as well. The question, as regards your statement that relates to prediction, is whether it really IS immediate. >