Looking Ahead

Falk Huettig is a Senior Investigator at the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, Netherlands. He holds honorary professorships at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau, Germany, and the University of Lisbon, Portugal.

'Looking Ahead uncovers the science behind our use of prediction to make decisions and navigate the complex world. Huettig offers original, evidence-based analyses of this capacity, emphasizing the historical context and scientific validity of the concepts. A must-read for anyone curious about the origins and widespread influence of the concept of intelligent systems as prediction engines.' Fernanda Ferreira, University of California, Davis

• Part I. Setting the Stage: 1. Talkin' Bout a Revolution: A Paradigm Shift; 2. Defining Prediction; 3. The Good, the Bad and the Ugly: Assessing a Theory; Part II. Psychological Theories: 4. Mind Reading: Introduction to Psychological Theories; 5. Reinforcing and Connecting: Prediction Involves Associative Learning; 6. Accessing the Remainders of Mental Representations & Filling in the Gaps: Prediction Involves Pre-Activation and Pattern Completion; 7. Implicit Priming and Active Forecasting: Prediction Involves Two Systems; 8. Mental Short-Cuts: Prediction Involves Simple Heuristics; 9. Inferences About Others and Their Mental States: Prediction Involves Social Theories; 10. Continuous Cycles of Perceiving, Acting, and Adjusting: Prediction Involves Perception-Action Loops; 11. Event Representations of How the World Works: Prediction Involves Mental Models of Events; 12. Moving Pictures in the Head: Prediction Involves Mental Simulation; Part III. Mathematical Theories: 13. Number Crunching: Introduction to Mathematical Theories; 14. Learned Activation Patterns of Simple Connected Processing Units: Prediction Involves Connectionist Neural Networks; 15. Reducing Surprisal and Entropy: Prediction Involves Information Theory; 16. Probabilistic Beliefs about the State of the World: Prediction Involves Bayesian Inference; 17. Quantum Probabilities: Prediction Involves Mathematical Formalisms of Quantum Theory; Part IV. Neurobiological Theories: 18. Wetware: Introduction to Neurobiological Theories; 19. Neuronal Overlap During Observation and Action: Prediction Involves Mirror Neurons; 20. Forward Models in the Brain: Prediction Involves the Cerebellum as a Predictive Engine; 21. Minimization of Prediction Errors by Self-Organizing Biological Systems: Prediction Involves Hierarchical Predictive Coding & Free Energy Neuroscience; 22. Information Processing Facilitated by Neural Rhythms: Prediction Involves Neural Oscillations; Part V. The Future of Prediction: 23. Lumping and Splitting; 24. A Look Ahead for Prediction Research.