Memory retrieval explains dynamic effects of expectations on perceptual decisions
- 1University of California, Irvine
Abstract
Expectations--prior knowledge of environmental statistics--support adaptive behavior by reducing uncertainty during inference. However, the questions of where expectations come from and how that ought to impact their integration has remained largely unexplored. Here, we present a novel model formalizing the role of memory retrieval in the process of integrating expectations with uncertain sensory information. To do this, we first articulate how uncertainty about expectations--omitted from existing normative models--ought to induce memory retrieval processes. We then model expectations as a dynamic source of internal evidence that observers sample from in parallel to vision, and that are weighed according to a time-evolving estimate of their reliability relative to sensory evidence. Finally, we show that this single, principled model can reproduce several previously disparate observations of time-varying effects of expectations in neural and behavioral data, each of which was previously explained using different neural and computational mechanisms. These findings suggest that our model identifies a basic mechanism governing the integration of expectations with sensory evidence on assumptions that more closely approximate the dynamic, heterogeneous, and uncertain nature of real-world decision settings.
Related
- Dissociable changes in temporal precision and causal expectations following perceptual training
- Neural abstraction of evidence accumulation enables flexible multidimensional perceptual decisions
- Dopaminergic reward signals shape foraging decisions through learned value expectations
- Strategy-dependent causal relationships between large-scale cortical activity and perceptual decisions
- A brain-behavior generative model links individual brain dynamics to perceptual decisions
BibTeX
@misc{khoudary2026memory,
title = {{Memory retrieval explains dynamic effects of expectations on perceptual decisions}},
author = {A. Khoudary and M. A. K. Peters and a. bornstein},
howpublished = {bioRxiv},
year = {2026},
month = sep,
doi = {10.64898/2026.09.22.753289},
url = {https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.22.753289v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - UNPB
TI - Memory retrieval explains dynamic effects of expectations on perceptual decisions
AU - A. Khoudary
AU - M. A. K. Peters
AU - a. bornstein
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/09/22
PB - bioRxiv
DO - 10.64898/2026.09.22.753289
UR - https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2026.09.22.753289v1
AB - Expectations--prior knowledge of environmental statistics--support adaptive behavior by reducing uncertainty during inference. However, the questions of where expectations come from and how that ought to impact their integration has remained largely unexplored. Here, we present a novel model formalizing the role of memory retrieval in the process of integrating expectations with uncertain sensory information. To do this, we first articulate how uncertainty about expectations--omitted from existing normative models--ought to induce memory retrieval processes. We then model expectations as a dynamic source of internal evidence that observers sample from in parallel to vision, and that are weighed according to a time-evolving estimate of their reliability relative to sensory evidence. Finally, we show that this single, principled model can reproduce several previously disparate observations of time-varying effects of expectations in neural and behavioral data, each of which was previously explained using different neural and computational mechanisms. These findings suggest that our model identifies a basic mechanism governing the integration of expectations with sensory evidence on assumptions that more closely approximate the dynamic, heterogeneous, and uncertain nature of real-world decision settings.
ER -