Worlding the Brain:

Predictive Processing as an Interdisciplinary Concept

Interdisciplinary Workshop at the University of Amsterdam, Wednesday November 16, 2016. Submission deadline: September 11, 2016 (acceptance on a rolling basis) 

‘Worlding the Brain’ series: This workshop is a continuation of a series of events that started with the international interdisciplinary conference ‘Worlding the Brain: Patterns, Rhythms and Narratives in Neuroscience and the Humanities’ in Amsterdam in March 2016. See https://worldingthebrain2016.com/

Workshop overview and objectives: An increasingly influential, potentially overarching theory of the brain is beginning to take shape within cognitive neuroscience. According to the concept of predictive processing, cognitive functions such as perception and action, working memory, attention and consciousness, reasoning and language, empathy and theory of mind, imagination and creativity all work in the brain on the basis of principles of probabilistic inference and prediction-error minimization. The aim of this workshop is to bring together researchers from the humanities, social sciences, and the brain sciences to reflect on what this model of the brain might mean for their respective disciplines and to start a conversation on the interdisciplinary potential of the concept of predictive processing.

Background and outline: Since the emergence of cognitive neuroscience as a field of research, the dominant models for understanding cognition in the brain have taken the brain to process information in a modular, piece-by-piece fashion more or less passively and reactively. The new models of cognition understand the brain to be much more proactive in its workings. Instead of passively processing stimuli and events after they have arisen, the brain predicts and anticipates events before they occur based on probabilistic models of what is likely to happen. The brain uses the information it has already gathered (including memory and expertise) to predict the information it is likely to receive in the future. It can then compare its predictions with the actual incoming multi-sensory stream to calculate prediction-errors. These prediction-error signals form the basis for much of what the brain does, allowing it to extrapolate from its mistakes better probabilistic models of the world that more adequately predict future environmental happenings.

According to such a predictive processing account, culture and language can be assumed to provide us with a wide range of ‘models’ that are employed in developing the predictions that facilitate the brain’s cognitive processing: narratives, symbols, rituals, images, and other cultural and discursive artifacts offer shared and semi-stable contents which allow these processes to make predictions with some probability of getting things more or less right. Research in the humanities has both a long history and distinctive methods for studying varieties of subjective and intersubjective experience and for reflecting on creative and imaginative modes of thought which are taken to be central to the workings of the predictive brain. This workshop will initiate a close interdisciplinary conversation about the predictive processing framework with respect to the following four topics.

Workshop topics:

1) Frames, models, narratives and discourses: the concept of “framing” is central in various forms of discourse analysis but is also used to conceptualise the role of expectation and so-called “generative models” in prediction. Might discourse analysis and narrative theory help us to understand the – often socio-culturally determined – models of reality the brain uses to generate its predictions? Do the models of reality map onto circuits in the brain giving biological reality to the theoretical tools researchers in the humanities have recourse to? How do context specific forms of predictive processing work, for instance within particular cultural realms,discourses, genres etc.

2) Novelty, innovation, creativity: The predictive brain uses past experience in the service of imagination, creativity, and innovation. How can past experiences be deployed in the present in the service of creativity and novelty? In what ways might the predictive brain help us to theorise and understand the processes of creativity and novelty in the humanities? Conversely, what tools might the humanities offer for understanding creativity and innovation in the brain?

3) Hierarchy and heterarchy, levels of processing and feedback: Predictive processing involves continuous negotiation and interaction between top-down expectation-driven, and bottom-up sensory flows of information. The result is a view of biological organisation that is highly dynamic, self-organising and context-sensitive. Yet this view of the brain is also typically described in terms of a hierarchy. The predictive brain is at once hierarchical and heterarchical in its organisation. Are there similar phenomena to be found within the humanities and social sciences? How might work on hierarchy and heterarchy within these fields help us to think about the brain and society as self-organizing systems?

4) Information processing and the reduction of complexity: the idea of the predictive brain developed out of work in machine learning on so-called predictive-coding. Predictive-coding was a method computer scientists employed for data-compression and complexity reduction. How might the concepts of data-compression and complexity reduction be productively employed in the humanities? How can the critical study of predictions in the digital realm, e.g. critical algorithm studies of predictive modelling of consumer behaviour on the internet, be related to cognitive research on predictive processing?

Workshop structure: This workshop will consist of four panels for each of these topics organized around the discussion of papers to be prepared and distributed in advance. The papers should take the form of short exploratory discussion papers (1500-2000 words) that serve as starting point for conversations at the workshop. With the aforementioned topics we suggest a selection of possible questions that might serve as the basis for a paper but we also very much welcome other directions. We would like all participants to have read all papers in advance. Wetherefore ask all invited participants to provide their discussion paper one month before the workshop takes place. We plan to prepare an open-access volume on the topic of the workshop and all participants will be invited to contribute a longer paper to this volume.

Call for submissions: This call is an invitation to submit a proposal for a discussion paper, focusing on one of the four topics mentioned above. The proposal should include a title; an abstract of ca. 250 words that previews the statement on the selected topic; a short bio that includes three publications that are relevant for the topic. The deadline for this proposal is September 11, 2016. Acceptance will occur on a rolling basis. Full papers of between 1500-2000 words are due on or before October 12, 2016.

Proposals and inquiries should be sent to: proposalsworldingthebrain@gmail.com.

This workshop is organized by members of the ASCA research group Neuroaesthetics and Neurocultures (http://asca.uva.nl/research/magic-constellations/content/neuroaesthetics-and-neurocultures/neuroaesthetics.html):

(Dept. of Humanities, UvA) Prof. dr. Patricia Pisters, Dr. Stephan Besser

(Dept. of Science, UvA) Dr. Machiel Keestra

(AMC) Dr. Julian Kiverstein

The workshop is partly funded by SMART Cognitive Science (UvA).