Cited by 264Visual perception and processing mechanismsFace Recognition and PerceptionNeural and Behavioral Psychology Studies

fMRI Repetition Suppression: Neuronal Adaptation or Stimulus Expectation?

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Larsson, J., Smith, A. T.·2012·Cerebral Cortex

Abstract

Measurements of repetition suppression with functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI adaptation) have been used widely to probe neuronal population response properties in human cerebral cortex. fMRI adaptation techniques assume that fMRI repetition suppression reflects neuronal adaptation, an assumption that has been challenged on the basis of evidence that repetition-related response changes may reflect unrelated factors, such as attention and stimulus expectation. Specifically, Summerfield et al. (Summerfield C, Trittschuh EH, Monti JM, Mesulam MM, Egner T. 2008. Neural repetition suppression reflects fulfilled perceptual expectations. Nat Neurosci. 11:1004-1006) reported that the relative frequency of stimulus repetitions and non-repetitions influenced the magnitude of repetition suppression in the fusiform face area, suggesting that stimulus expectation accounted for most of the effect of repetition. We confirm that stimulus expectation can significantly influence fMRI repetition suppression throughout visual cortex and show that it occurs with long as well as short adaptation durations. However, the effect was attention dependent: When attention was diverted away from the stimuli, the effects of stimulus expectation completely disappeared. Nonetheless, robust and significant repetition suppression was still evident. These results suggest that fMRI repetition suppression reflects a combination of neuronal adaptation and attention-dependent expectation effects that can be experimentally dissociated. This implies that with an appropriate experimental design, fMRI adaptation can provide valid measures of neuronal adaptation and hence response specificity.

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  • Efforts to trace the diffusion of these effects across the processing hierarchy have produced mixed results.

    “Although there is evidence that the predictability of a stimulus modulates activity in low‐level sensory areas 103 , 128 and alters the functional connectivity between neural regions associated with its processing, 75 , 83 , 155 , 195 efforts to trace the diffusion of these effects across the processing hierarchy have produced mixed results.”

    From Evaluating the neurophysiological evidence for predictive processing as a model of perception (2020) · cites this paper as [60]

    The Introduction (page not available) says the study measured expectation effects across visual areas from V1 to FFA. The Perceptual Expectation Index section reports effects in nearly all areas when attention was focused, but in none when attention was diverted. This supports condition-dependent findings across visual areas, but the paper does not describe mixed results from efforts to trace how the effects diffuse through a processing hierarchy. (LLM, conf=0.78)

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Authors
Larsson, J., & Smith, A. T.
Affiliations
University of London (GB)
Venue
Cerebral Cortex
Published
2011-06-20
Volume
22
Issue
3
Pages
567-576
ISSN
  • 1047-3211 (ISSN-L)
  • 1460-2199
OpenAlex
W2167809907
Cited by
264
References
59
Citations by year
2026: 11 · 2025: 15 · 2024: 11 · 2023: 20 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 18 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 23 · 2017: 16 · 2016: 29 · 2015: 23 · 2014: 20 · 2013: 19 · 2012: 14
FWCI
9.10
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Licence
public-domain
Locations
  • Cerebral Cortex (publishedVersion, public-domain)
  • Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
Funders
Wellcome Trust (082648)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Visual perception and processing mechanisms
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Face Recognition and Perception
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Cognitive Neuroscience › Neural and Behavioral Psychology Studies
Keywords
fMRI adaptation, repetition suppression, neural adaptation, attention, visual cortex, fusiform face area, response specificity, perceptual expectations
MeSH terms
Adaptation, Psychological, Adult, Attention, Female, Humans, Learning, Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Neurons, Photic Stimulation, Psychomotor Performance, Visual Cortex, Visual Perception, Young Adult, Repetition Priming

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