The effect of learning and memory on contextual feedback to V1 using ambiguous stimuli and 3T fMRI (v1)

Contextual information and prior knowledge facilitate perceptual processing, improving our recognition of distorted or obstructed visual inputs. As a result, the processing elicited by identical sensory inputs can vary depending on our pre-existing knowledge or the context in which we encounter those inputs. This modulation is in line with predictive processing accounts of vision, which suggest that the brain uses internal models of the world to anticipate sensory signals, with cortical feedback processing to sensory areas encoding beliefs about those inputs. As such, acquiring knowledge, or learning should enhance our internal models that we use to resolve sensory ambiguities, and feedback signals should encode more accurate beliefs. We used partially occluded Mooney images, ambiguous two-tone images which are difficult to recognise without prior knowledge of the image content, in a human 3T fMRI experiment to measure if contextual feedback signals in early visual areas are more informative about the contextual surround after acquiring prior knowledge. Our findings could be integrated with data from cellular studies in animals investigating learning and memory.