April 15, 2010 
The brain predicts what you will see with your eyes in a familiar environment, report German scientists …
Only when your eyes perceive the unexpected detail, the brain starts to invest more effort, scientists say for brain research at Max Planck Institute in Frankfurt.
Scientists have discovered that the brain uses less effort when looking at familiar objects, which means that it ‘predicted’ what it will see, according to a study published in the Journal of Neuroscience.
Experts led by Dr. Arjen Alinka discovered that the primary visual cortex of our brain more easily identifies the expected items than those which it did not foresee.
The study includes people who have watched a number of dots correctly broken with white spaces. A device for magnetic resonance monitored brain activity in their visual cortex.
When the white spaces began to appear unexpectedly, the visual cortex had to put extra effort to recognize the contingency item. Scientists believe that this discovery implies that our brains uses less effort when you ‘see’ what you expected to see.
Alink and colleagues made the conclusion based on the characteristics of responses in the primary visual cortex. It is known that the cortex is critical for vision and the reactions in it create a map of what you are watching at a particular moment.
It was first time shown that pictures cause poorer reaction if they are predictable. This could mean that the brain does not sit quietly and wait for visual clues, rather than actively trying to assume which characters will arrive, when it guesses right, uses a more effective response. If the brain makes a mistake, a strong reaction is necessary to reveal a mistake and to design a better prediction.
Taken from: www.dnevnik.hr