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The proactive brain: memory for predictions
Abstract
It is proposed that the human brain is proactive in that it continuously generates predictions that anticipate the relevant future. In this proposal, analogies are derived from elementary information that is extracted rapidly from the input, to link that input with the representations that exist in memory. Finding an analogical link results in the generation of focused predictions via associative activation of representations that are relevant to this analogy, in the given context. Predictions in complex circumstances, such as social interactions, combine multiple analogies. Such predictions need not be created afresh in new situations, but rather rely on existing scripts in memory, which are the result of real as well as of previously imagined experiences. This cognitive neuroscience framework provides a new hypothesis with which to consider the purpose of memory, and can help explain a variety of phenomena, ranging from recognition to first impressions, and from the brain's ‘default mode’ to a host of mental disorders.
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“This article will be included because it offers a holistic perspective on memory in general and it also offers a potential link to predictive coding theory not covered as closely by the previous included articles.”
From The Ergonomics of Learning: A Proposed Update to Bloom’s Taxonomy (2025) · cites this paper as Bar, M. (2009)
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Cited by
Sorted by citations
The brain basis of emotion: a meta-analytic review
Lindquist, K. A., Wager, T. D., Kober, H., Bliss-Moreau, E., & Barrett, L. F. (2012) · Behavioral and Brain Sciences · doi:10.1017/s0140525x11000446 · Cited by 2,320
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An integrated theory of language production and comprehension
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The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization
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The theory of constructed emotion: an active inference account of interoception and categorization
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Metadata
- Authors
- Bar, M.
- Affiliations
- Martinos Center for Biomedical Imaging at MGH, Harvard Medical SchoolCharlestown, MA 02129, USA
- Venue
- Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences
- Publisher
- The Royal Society
- Published
- 2009-05-12
- Volume
- 364
- Issue
- 1521
- Pages
- 1235-1243
- ISSN
- 0962-8436
- 1471-2970
- Cited by
- 498
- References
- 22
- Language
- en
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