The idea of the brain operating (at least in part) as a "prediction machine" is certainly not a new one. I'm actually surprised it's taken this long for this sort of experimental confirmation and theory to become more mainstream.
There's been a number of articles on HN over the years on saccades / visual interpolation.
See: https://www.portsmouthctc.org.uk/a-fighter-pilots-guide-to-s...
>The mind has a basic habit, which is to create things. In fact, when the Buddha describes causality, how experiences come about, he says that the power of creation or sankhara—the mental tendency to put things together—actually comes prior to our sensory experience. It’s because the mind is active, actively putting things together, that it knows things.
>The problem is that most of its actions, most of its creations, come out of ignorance, so the kind of knowledge that comes from those creations can be misleading.
The second paragraph is getting off the topic - or is it?
Yeah, you hit the nail on the head right there! The idea goes back at least as far as Hermann von Helmholtz (19th century).
i can't speak much as to their original research efforts, but i personally appreciate the engineering-research side of what they are doing.