UNIVERSITY OF HERTFORDSHIRE
    	     COMPUTER SCIENCE RESEARCH COLLOQUIUM

	     		        presents


             "Computational and neural efficiencies in behavioural control"



		                Dr Daniel McNamee

	   (Max Planck UCL Centre for Computational Psychiatry and Ageing Research)

		           3rd April 2019 (Wednesday)

			            13:00 - 14:00


		        Hatfield, College Lane Campus
		             Seminar Room C152

	    	    Everyone is welcome to attend

	     	    Refreshments will be available

Abstract:

Biological control of high-dimensional, dynamical systems such as the body or the world imposes large complexity costs on the subserving neural hardware. A long-standing hypothesis posits that the nervous system efficiently organizes behaviour using schematic hierarchical representations in order to be able to effectively plan and implement control policies despite its capacity limitations. I will present a principled computational formalism rationalising the allocation of cognitive and neural resources in behavioural control and use this model to explain apparent empirical signatures of efficient control hierarchies in rodent and human data.