Study identifies our "inner pickpocket"

Researchers have identified how the human brain is able to determine the properties of a particular object with the help of purely statistical information: a result suggesting that there is an "internal pickpocket" in each of us.

Researchers from Cambridge University, Central European University, and Columbia University have discovered that one of the reasons that successful pickpockets are so effective is that they are able to identify objects that are they have never seen before by touching them. Similarly, we can anticipate what an object will be in a showcase by simply looking at it.

In both scenarios, we rely on the brain's ability to divide the continuous flow of information received by our sensory inputs into discrete pieces. The pickpocket is able to interpret the sequence of small depressions on his fingers as a series of well-defined objects in a pocket or purse, while the visual system of the client is able to interpret photons as reflections of light from objects in the window.

Our ability to extract distinct objects from only touch or sight-cluttered scenes and accurately predict their impression, based on their appearance or appearance, is essential for our interaction with the world.

By performing clever statistical analyzes of past experiences, the brain can immediately identify objects without it being necessary to set clear boundaries or other specialized indices, and to predict new unknown properties. objects. The results are reported in the open access journal eLife.

"We are examining how the brain absorbs the continuous flow of information that it receives and segments it into objects," said Professor Máté Lengyel of the Cambridge Engineering Department, who led the research. "The general point of view is that the brain receives specialized signals: like edges or occlusions, indicating where one thing ends and another begins, but we found that the brain is a really smart statistical machine: it's looking for models and finds blocks to build objects. "

Lengyel and his colleagues designed scenes of several abstract forms without visible boundaries and asked participants to observe the shapes on a screen or to "separate" them along a tear line passing through or between objects.

Participants were then tested on their ability to predict the visual (how much of the actual puzzle pieces were known compared to abstract pieces made from parts of two different pieces) and the haptic properties of those pieces (to how difficult would it be to physically separate new scenes in different directions).

The researchers found that participants were able to form the correct mental model of the pieces of the puzzle from a visual or haptic (tactile) experience only, and were able to immediately predict haptic properties from visual properties and Conversely.

"These results challenge conventional conceptions of how we extract and learn objects in our environment," said Lengyel. "Instead, we have shown that general-purpose statistical calculations known to work even in the youngest infants are powerful enough to allow such cognitive feats.In particular, the participants in our study were not selected to be professional pickpockets.These findings also suggest there is a secret and statistically aware pickpocket in all of us. "