Brains Predict Before Perception: How We Classify the World in Real Time

Neuroscientists Lisa Feldman Barrett and Earl Miller argue that the brain constructs categories on the fly through predictions before sensory input, meaning we infer what we’re seeing (like a cat) based on past experience, bodily signals, and language. This predictive view challenges bottom-up ideas of perception and ties bias, beginner’s mind, and even mental-health concepts to how we categorize the world.