Center-surround inhibition by expectation: a neuro-computational account

Abstract Expectation is beneficial for adaptive behavior through quickly deducing plausible interpretations of information. The profile and underlying neural computations of this process, however, remain unclear. When participants expected a grating with a specific orientation, we found a center-surround inhibition profile in orientation space, which was independent from attentional modulations by task-relevance. Using computational modeling, we showed that this center-surround inhibition could be reproduced by either a sharpening of tuning curves of expected orientation or a shift of tuning curves of unexpected orientations. Intriguingly, these two computations were further supported by orientation-adjustment and orientation-discrimination experiments. Finally, the ablation studies in convolutional neural networks revealed that predictive coding feedback played a critical role in the center-surround inhibition in expectation. Altogether, our study reveals for the first time that expectation results in both enhancement and suppression, optimizing plausible interpretations during perception by enhancing expected and attenuating similar but irrelevant and potentially interfering representations.