Research Program / Claims / expectation-3

Expectation determines which data the individual receives from all available inner data, and interprets these data according to the same expectation.

期望决定个体从所有可得内在数据中接收哪些数据，并按同一期望解释这些数据。

Concept expectation · Domain Belief Dynamics and Mind–Body Regulation · mechanism · interface 3/3 · testability 3/3 · status contested · ★ fundable

This program treats the Seth Material as a source of hypotheses, not as doctrine to be validated. Lead dossiers are AI-compiled from the corpus with a book-and-session citation after every statement; literature reviews are AI web-search summaries whose references were all DOI-verified against Crossref; the agenda draft is an AI synthesis. None of it is Seth's original text, and none of it represents scientific consensus. English fields are machine-translated; the Chinese text is authoritative.

Seth sources (book §session)
Adjudicating experiment
Corresponding to Question 1: Two centers, about 240 participants total, randomly assigned to a high-predictive-cue group and a no-predictive-cue group; after training, physically identical ambiguous images are presented while EEG, eye movements, forced choice, and confidence are recorded; each participant attends 2 sessions; project duration about 9 months. Attention is independently manipulated, reward and action mapping are matched; preregistered analyses include pre-stimulus decoding, early evoked responses, and signal-detection sensitivity and criterion. Procedures are automatically assigned; testers and analysts are blind; participants are blind to the research hypothesis; participants cannot be blind to the expectation cue they receive, so this cannot be called strictly double-blind.
Suggested paper title
Separating Sensory and Decision Effects of Expectancy on Ambiguous Visual Perception: A Preregistered Multicenter EEG Study
What it would overturn
If early sensory encoding is still altered after excluding confounds of attention, judgment, and reporting, this would challenge the assumption that early visual processing is closed to higher-level cognition.
Candidate labs / funders
Floris P. de Lange，拉德堡德大学唐德斯研究所; Peter Kok; Chaz Firestone; Brian J. Scholl
Specificity of Seth's formulation
Overlaps with predictive processing, confirmation bias, and selective attention; the claim that 'all inner data' are determined by expectation is stronger, but it does not specify which information is necessarily excluded.
Note
'contested' refers to controversy over perceptual-level explanations; there is support that choice and interpretation are influenced by expectation, but it has not been established that expectation determines all inner information; EEG group differences alone are insufficient to prove sensory alteration.
Evidence (2, DOI-verified via Crossref)
  • Prior expectations induce prestimulus sensory templates — Peter Kok; Pim Mostert; Floris P. de Lange (2017), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
    脑磁图发现刺激出现前已有与预期刺激相似的神经表征，支持期望参与感觉准备，但不证明其决定所有信息接收。[论文](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1705652114)
  • Cognition does not affect perception: Evaluating the evidence for "top-down" effects — Chaz Firestone; Brian J. Scholl (2016), Behavioral and Brain Sciences
    批判性综述指出，许多所谓知觉改变可由注意、判断、记忆或报告偏差解释，争议集中于作用层级。[论文](https://doi.org/10.1017/S0140525X15000965)

Cite: Future Mind Institute, Seth Material Research Agenda, claim expectation-3, https://www.seth.org.cn/en/research/claims/expectation-3