What is Predictive Coding?
Predictive coding is a theory of how the brain processes information: it maintains an internal model of reality, generates predictions about incoming sensory input, and updates the model based on prediction errors (the difference between predicted and actual input).
Key Principles
- •Top-down predictions — the brain predicts what it will sense
- •Prediction errors — mismatches drive learning and attention
- •Efficiency — only unexpected signals need full processing
- •Reality as model — perception is the brain's "best guess"
Predictive Coding and the Body
Applied to signals from inside the body, this idea becomes "interoceptive inference": the brain predicts heartbeat, breathing and other bodily states, and feelings may reflect those predictions (Seth, 2013; Barrett & Simmons, 2015). These are models — useful frameworks that are still being tested, not established facts. Polyvagal theory is a separate, debated model and is not the basis of predictive coding.
In ONDA Life
Part 9 uses mental simulation and visualization practices. ONDA does not measure brain predictions or prediction errors.
Scientific Basis
Sources: Seth, Trends Cogn Sci (2013); Barrett & Simmons, Nat Rev Neurosci (2015).