Active inference, selective attention, and the cocktail party problem

In this paper, we introduce a new generative model for an active inference account of preparatory and selective attention, in the context of a classic ‘cocktail party’ paradigm. In this setup, two talkers speak simultaneously and an instructive spatial cue directs attention to the left or right talker. We use this generative model to test competing hypotheses about the way that human listeners direct preparatory and selective attention. We show that assigning low precision to words at attended—relative to unattended—locations can explain why a listener reports words from a competing sentence. Under this model, temporal changes in sensory precision were not needed to account for faster reaction times with longer cue-target intervals, but were necessary to explain ramping effects on event-related potentials—resembling the contingent negative variation (CNV)—during the preparatory interval. These simulations demonstrate that behavioural and electrophysiological correlates of voluntary attention emerge from neuronally plausible belief updating or message passing and, crucially, distinguish between the effects of deploying precision in different parts of a generative model.