Perceive this: The human brain controls alpha-band oscillation phase to effect temporal predictions

Standard models of perception are stimulus-driven, meaning that the external perceptual event drives the brain's perception-related activity. However, the tide may be turning: recent ideas suggest that our perceptual experiences and visually guided behaviors are influenced by top-down processes in the brain – specifically, the brain's predictions about the external world. Recently, scientists at University of Wisconsin–Madison demonstrated that perceptual expectations about when a stimulus will appear are instantiated in the brain by optimally configuring prestimulus alpha-band oscillations in order to optimize the effectiveness of subsequent neural processing. The researchers state that their findings provide direct evidence that forming temporal predictions about when a stimulus will appear can bias the phase of ongoing alpha-band oscillations (one of the dominant oscillations in the human brain) toward an optimal phase for visual processing, and so may be the means for the top-down control of visual processing guided by temporal predictions.