Hallucinations as Top-Down Effects on Perception

Abstract

The problem of whether and how information is integrated across hierarchical brain networks embodies a fundamental tension in contemporary cognitive neuroscience, and by extension, cognitive neuropsychiatry. Indeed, the penetrability of perceptual processes in a “top-down” manner by higher-level cognition—a natural extension of hierarchical models of perception—may contradict a strictly modular view of mental organization. Furthermore, some in the cognitive science community have challenged cognitive penetration as an unlikely, if not impossible, process. We review the evidence for and against top-down influences in perception, informed by a predictive coding model of perception and drawing heavily on the literature of computational neuroimaging. We extend these findings to propose a way in which these processes may be altered in mental illness. We propose that hallucinations—perceptions without stimulus—can be understood as top-down effects on perception, mediated by inappropriate perceptual priors.