UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
             COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

                            presents

     
	"Cognition from the Inside Out: How our Brains Generate Questions
	         and Resolve them by Paying Attention"
	

                    Prof. Jacqueline Gottlieb
       (Department of Neuroscience, The Kavli Institute for Brain Science;
	   The Zuckerman Institute for Mind Brain and Behavior, Columbia University)

                          8 May 2024 
                         13:00 -14:00 
                          Room LF231

                  Everyone is Welcome to Attend
				  Refreshments will be provided
				  
				                               

Abstract:


A bedrock assumption in neuroscience and cognitive psychology has been that cognition proceeds Outside-In. Participate in any cognitive science experiment, and you will be given a stimulus (from the outside) and asked to do something with it (let it trigger your cognitive machinery). And yet this approach has produced rather disappointing results, suggesting that it is insufficient for describing complex realistic behaviors. I will discuss our forays into the alternative view that cognition proceeds Inside-Out. I will focus on information gathering and propose that organisms come equipped with a set of motivations and previous knowledge, and actively seek signals that resolve uncertainty (answer questions) that are posed by that knowledge. I will describe what this idea implies about the neural architecture of attention control -- and look forward to a discussing how it relates to intrinsic motivation including empowerment.





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Hertfordshire Computer Science Research Colloquium
http://cs-colloq.cs.herts.ac.uk