Effects of Hallucination Proneness and Sensory Resolution on Prior Biases in Human Perceptual Inference of Time Intervals

Bayesian models of perception posit that percepts result from the optimal integration of new sensory information and prior expectations. In turn, prominent models of perceptual disturbances in psychosis frame hallucination-like phenomena as per-cepts excessively biased toward perceptual prior expectations. Despite mounting support for this notion, whether this halluci-nation-related prior bias results secondarily from imprecise sensory representations at early processing stages or directly from alterations in perceptual priors-both suggested candidates potentially consistent with Bayesian models-remains to be tested. Using modified interval timing paradigms designed to arbitrate between these alternative hypotheses, we show in human participants (16 females and 24 males) from a nonclinical population that hallucination proneness correlates with a circumscribed form of prior bias that reflects selective differences in weighting of contextual prior variance, a prior bias that is unrelated to the effect of sensory noise and to a separate index of sensory resolution. Our results thus suggest distinct mechanisms underlying prior biases in perceptual inference and favor the notion that hallucination proneness could reflect direct alterations in the representation or use of perceptual priors independent of sensory noise.

Automated summary

Bayesian models propose that perception results from the integration of sensory information and prior expectations. Hallucination-like phenomena in psychosis may be explained by an excessive bias towards perceptual prior expectations. This study investigates whether this prior bias is due to imprecise early sensory representations or alterations in perceptual priors, and finds that hallucination proneness correlates with a circumscribed form of prior bias that is independent of sensory noise and resolution.