[BIC-announce] FW: Seminar in Cognitive Neuroscience - Deciding about actions: The affordance competition hypothesis

[Jennifer Chew, Ms.]

Please discard if this is a duplicate.  Thank you.  Jennifer  
 
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Paul Cisek


Assistant Professor


Department of Physiology


University of Montreal


 

Deciding about actions: The affordance competition hypothesis

 

 


Thursday, January 26th, 2006


W201


3801 University Street


1:30 p.m. 


 

 

 

Abstract:

 

The classical model of cognitive processing places it in series with
perceptual processes that construct an internal representation of the
world and motor control processes that implement desired actions. Within
this broad view, decision-making is seen as occurring prior to the
planning of the chosen movement. However, neural data does not support
this serial model, and activity throughout the cerebral cortex appears
to covary with mixtures of sensory, motor, and cognitive variables. As
an alternative to the serial model, I will present an hypothesis which
suggests that the brain continuously processes sensory information in
terms of potential actions while accumulating information for selecting
between them. In support of this notion, I will describe a
neurophysiological experiment which shows that the brain can represent
multiple potential actions in premotor and parietal regions prior to
making a decision.

 

 

 

 

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