Investigating the neural effects of typicality and predictability for face and object stimuli

The brain calibrates itself based on the past stimulus diet, which makes frequently observed stimuli appear as typical (as opposed to uncommon stimuli, which appear as distinctive). Based on predictive processing theory, the brain should be more "prepared" for typical exemplars, because these contain information that has been encountered frequently, allowing it to economically represent items of that category. Thus, one could ask whether predictability and typicality of visual stimuli interact, or rather act in an additive manner. We adapted the design by Egner and colleagues (2010), who used cues to induce expectations about stimulus category (face vs. chair) occurrence during an orthogonal inversion detection task. We measured BOLD responses with fMRI in 35 participants. First, distinctive stimuli always elicited stronger responses than typical ones in all ROIs, and our whole-brain directional contrasts for the effects of typicality and distinctiveness converge with previous findings. Second and importantly, we could not replicate the interaction between category and predictability reported by Egner et al. (2010), which casts doubt on whether cueing designs are ideal to elicit reliable predictability effects. Third, likely as a consequence of the lack of predictability effects, we found no interaction between predictability and typicality in any of the four tested regions (bilateral fusiform face areas, lateral occipital complexes) when considering both categories, nor in the whole brain. We discuss the issue of replicability in neuroscience and sketch an agenda for how future studies might address the same question.