The Expectation Effect
David Robson
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Helmholtz’s theories of optics influenced postimpressionist artists like Georges Seurat,4 but it was only in the 1990s that the idea really started to take off in neuroscience—with signs that the brain’s predictions influence every stage of visual processing
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Interestingly, a follow-up study found that auditory hallucinations of this kind are more common when we feel stressed and have consumed caffeine, which is thought to be a mildly hallucinogenic substance and may lead the brain to place more confidence in its predictions.