We are excited about the next Neural Mechanisms webinar this Friday (21st). As always, it is free. You can find information about how and when to join the webinar below or at the Neural Mechanisms website—where you can also join sign up for the mailing list that notifies people about upcoming webinars,
Testing Predictive Processing: lessons from the mechanistic perspective
Marcin Miłkowski* & Piotr Litwin**
*Polish Academy of Science, **University of Warsaw
21 February 2020
at h 15-17 Greenwhich Mean Time
(Convert to your local time here)
Abstract. The predictive processing theory of action, cognition, and perception is one of the most influential approaches to unifying research in cognitive science. But it is somewhat difficult to say how to test this theory empirically and whether it is even possible at all. In this paper, we argue that principles, general theories and particular models driven by PP can be only partially tested or falsified. In some cases, there is no sufficient detail to make falsification possible, and when details are present, the models, theories and principles seem often implausible or outright false. Moreover, if one assumes that proper explanations should be mechanistic, several important lessons for PP can be drawn. As we will argue, current research practice is nonetheless far from the normative ideals for mechanistic explanations and cognitive modeling in general.
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