Predictive Coding: a Theoretical and Experimental Review

Understand

Predictive coding offers a potentially unifying account of cortical function -- postulating that the core function of the brain is to minimize prediction errors with respect to a generative model of the world.

• The theory is closely related to the Bayesian brain framework and, over the last two decades, has gained substantial influence in the fields of theoretical and cognitive neuroscience.
• A large body of research has arisen based on both empirically testing improved and extended theoretical and mathematical models of predictive coding, as well as in evaluating their potential biological plausibility for implementation in the brain and the concrete neurophysiological and psychological predictions made by the theory.
• Despite this enduring popularity, however, no comprehensive review of predictive coding theory, and especially of recent developments in this field, exists.