How Our Brain Predicts the Immediate Future
A new study explains how the brain predicts when something will happen. (Illustration: Ernst Strüngmann Institute of the Max Planck Society)
A study by neuroscientists of the Ernst Strüngmann Institute of the Max Planck Society, Goethe University Frankfurt, the Max Planck Institute for Empirical Aesthetics (all based in Frankfurt am Main, Germany), and New York University, USA, explains how the human brain predicts the timing of future events.
The results were recently published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The research shows that the brain continuously estimates how likely something is to happen within the next three seconds—and uses this estimate to prepare fast and accurate reactions.
This is because humans respond to environments that change at many different speeds. A video game player, for example, reacts to on-screen events unfolding within hundreds of milliseconds or over several seconds. A boxer anticipates an opponent's moves—even when their timing differs from that of previous opponents. In each case, the brain predicts when events occur, prepares for what comes next and flexibly adapts to the demands of the situation.
Thus, the brain has the ability to anticipate what will happen. The current study now explains how the brain predicts when something will happen, enabling people to react faster and more accurately.
Publication:
Grabenhorst, M., Poeppel, D. & Michalareas, G. (2026). The Anticipation of Imminent Events is Time-Scale Invariant. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.2518982123
Source and Further Information:
Ernst Strüngmann Institute of the Max Planck Society
