How the brain predicts timing: distinct network hubs for predicting and evaluating auditory sensory events

Temporal prediction enhances perceptual processing by aligning neural excitability with expected sensory events. While local oscillatory mechanisms are known to support timing, less is understood about how large-scale functional brain networks dynamically coordinate predictive processes. In particular, it remains unclear how functional connectivity (FC)-the integration of information into network hubs-differs during expectation formation (prediction) versus post-target outcome evaluation, and how this varies across levels of predictability.

To investigate this, we recorded electroencephalographic data (EEG) while participants performed a cued auditory target-detection task with varying temporal predictability (80% and 50%). FC was analyzed using a data-driven approach based on Normalized Directed Transfer Entropy (NDTE) applied to EEG difference waveforms between high- and low-predictability conditions, separately for the post-cue and post-target periods to distinguish prediction and evaluation phases.

Behaviorally, higher temporal predictability facilitated faster reaction times. Event-related potential (ERP) results revealed that implicit temporal predictability primarily modulated later evaluative processes (P3b, frontal negativity), rather than early sensory components, consistent with context updating under uncertainty. FC analyses revealed that the fronto-temporo-parietal network engaged in the prediction phase evolves into a more focal auditory-frontal circuit during the evaluation of the prediction outcomes.

Our findings highlight that temporal prediction and evaluation are supported by the dynamic interactions among multiple large-scale networks rather than by any single region or pathway, supporting both frontal-dominant and distributed integration models of predictive processing.