T18, Awareness, agency and control (Alfonso Rénart)

Question 1

what is a decision?

Answer 1

A choice you make about something after thinking about several possibilities

Question 2

What are the two branches in in decision theory?

Answer 2

1. Normative decision theory

2. Descriptive decision theory

Question 3

How is uncertainty solved?

Answer 3

1. evaluations of the outcomes of each course of action
2. History of choices in similar situations
3. chance

Question 4

what is goal-directed behavior?

Answer 4

Instrumental conditioning

1. stimulis
2. action
   - need a model
3. outcome

Question 5

What is habitual behaviour=

Answer 5

Instrumental conditioning

1. Stimulus
   - need extensive experience
2. action
3. outcome

Question 6

what is pavlovian behavioue?

Answer 6

Classic conditioning

1. Stimulus
   - several stimulus creates a generalizes reflex
   - only a small set of pre-determined actions reflexes
2. Action
3. Outcome

Question 7

what is the law of effect?

Answer 7

• Thorndike
• explains habitual behavior
• If an action is followed by a reward ut is more likely to happen again
• Computationally simple
  —> act automatically in response to a certain stimulus if it has proven to be good in the past
• inflexible, slow
  —> the output has to change repeatedly to change the association

Question 8

What is latent learning?

Answer 8

• Tolman
• goal-directed behavior
• what we usually think of as a decision making
  -computatonally complex
  —> “if I do this, this will happen”
• flexible, fast
  —> action can change as your model is updated

Question 9

Name some facts about expected utility theory!

Answer 9

1. Decisions are optimal
   —> Normative
2. Places certain constraints on the form of the utility function
3. Agens use the laws of probability

Question 10

Name some facts about prospect theory!

Answer 10

1. Decisions not optimal
   —> describe how people choose not how they SHOULD choose
   —> Descriptive

Question 11

What is reinforcement learning theory?

Answer 11

Reinforcement Learning Theory shows that in order to learn to predict reward, one needs a teaching signal driven by errors in prediction:

Question 12

Which Brain areas involved in value encoding/learning, and action selection driven by reward?

Answer 12

1. Prefrontal cortex
—> value representation
2. Basal Ganglie
—> action selection
3. Dopamine neurons
—> reward prediction error

Question 13

Selection of action?

Answer 13

1. Habitual

2. Goal- directed

Question 14

why is prediction errors useful?

Answer 14

to learn the value of actions

- are encoded by the activity of certain neurons in the brain

Question 15

How do people typically make choices?

Answer 15

People don’t typically make choices in a normative fashion

Question 16

what is perceptual decision-making

Answer 16

In perceptual decision making the relevant source of uncertainty Is not in the relative value of the different outcomes, but in the Perceptual identification of the different sensory stimuli

Question 17

High threshold theory?

Answer 17

CENTRAL IDEA
- Sensory threshold

SIGNALS
signals less than the threshold don’t evoke perception

Question 18

What is signal-detection theory?

Answer 18

Signal-Detection-Theory provides a framework for studying static sensory decisions.

It is able to tell apart effects due to uncertainty in sensory representations from those due to decision strategies

Question 19

What is sequential sampling?

Answer 19

Sequential sampling problems deal with making decisions when sensory evidence arrives in time as a stream.

It exposes the speed- accuracy trade-off as a generic feature of these type of choices (although there can be SATs even if evidence is one-shot).

Question 20

What is drift to bound models?

Answer 20

Drift to bound models are widely used to describe sequential sampling decision problems and they embody naturally the SAT.

They have both a normative interpretation (SPRT) as well as a descriptive one.

Question 21

What is the ILD-discrimination task?

Answer 21

The ILD-discrimination task allows us to infer the sensory uncertainty
that the rats experience from measurements of their behaviour.