Review
Behavioral Sciences
Carolyn Baer, Celeste Kidd
Summary: Learners use certainty as a guide for learning. They maintain existing beliefs when certain, but seek further information when uncertain. Research has shown that even in infancy, uncertainty prompts human infants and non-human animals to engage in problem-solving strategies.
TRENDS IN COGNITIVE SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Dounia Mulders, Ben Seymour, Andre Mouraux, Flavia Mancini
Summary: Pain perception evolves over time, and the brain needs to learn this evolution to predict and adjust behavior. This process, known as temporal statistical learning (TSL), can be achieved using optimal Bayesian inference. This study investigates whether the confidence of these probabilistic predictions affects the brain's EEG response to pain stimuli. The results show that participants were able to predict pain sequence probabilities using Bayesian inference, and the confidence of these predictions was negatively associated with the amplitude of certain components of the EEG response.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Automation & Control Systems
Dena Firoozi
Summary: This article introduces the research progress of mean field game systems consisting of a major agent and a large number of minor agents. It mentions different approaches such as the Nash certainty equivalence and analytic approach, master equations, asymptotic solvability, and the probabilistic approach, as well as their applications in the LQG case. Through several studies, the consistency issue of the solutions to major-minor LQG MFG systems derived using different approaches has been answered.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Daniel Schlunegger, Fred W. Mast
Summary: Expectations of sensory information influence both the quality and content of our perception. The brain constantly computes probabilities between sensory events to generate predictions about future events. By studying behavioral responses in different experiments, we found that recent decisions, rather than the sequence of stimuli, cause serial dependence. This offers a new perspective on sequential choice effects and suggests that serial biases reflect the tracking of statistical regularities of the decision variable.
Article
Neurosciences
Tiffany Bounmy, Evelyn Eger, Florent Meyniel
Summary: Learning in a stochastic and changing environment is challenging, and models of learning propose that observations deviating from learned predictions are surprising and used to update predictions. Bayesian accounts suggest the existence of a confidence-weighting mechanism, but the neural basis of confidence is less understood than surprise. In this study, high-field MRI was used to identify cortical regions involved in representing confidence during human learning, and results revealed several parietal and frontal regions that respond to the confidence of an ideal observer, while accounting for confounds and item predictability.
Article
Computer Science, Information Systems
Xinli You, Fujun Hou
Summary: The probabilistic linguistic preference relation is a useful tool for describing stakeholder preferences in group decision-making. Personalized feedback mechanisms, based on self-confidence and leadership, help update stakeholder preferences and reach consensus. Constructing trust relationships, assessing self-confidence levels, and identifying opinion leaders are key steps in this process.
INFORMATION SCIENCES
(2022)
Article
Biochemical Research Methods
Rebecca West, William Harrison, Natasha Matthews, Jason Mattingley, David Sewell
Summary: This study investigates the computational processes involved in deriving confidence in decision-making. It finds that a class of models that assesses evidence strength and sensory uncertainty provides the best account of confidence in both visual and auditory decisions.
PLOS COMPUTATIONAL BIOLOGY
(2023)
Article
Behavioral Sciences
Selim Habiby Alaoui, Alexandra Adam-Darque, Radek Ptak, Armin Schnider
Summary: The brain processes unmet expectations differently depending on whether they are in a deterministic or probabilistic environment, with the relevant areas being the OFC in deterministic contexts and the ACC in probabilistic contexts. These different mechanisms also manifest in various dimensions such as behavior, clinical presentation, electrophysiology, and anatomy.
Article
Business
Matthew D. Rocklage, Sharlene He, Derek D. Rucker, Loran F. Nordgren
Summary: Sentiment analysis has transformed the ability of marketers to assess consumer opinion, but current emphasis on valence measurement may produce incomplete and inaccurate insights. The authors propose measuring the certainty of sentiment as a potent facet to assess, and they develop the Certainty Lexicon as a more comprehensive and accurate tool compared to others. They also demonstrate the value of measuring sentiment certainty for marketers, as it predicts real-world success that traditional sentiment analysis does not.
JOURNAL OF MARKETING RESEARCH
(2023)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Zhengping Chang, Jianguo Xu, Yu Qin, Qingyong Zheng, Liang Zhao, Yunfang Wang, Yan Zhang
Summary: Type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) is a significant global burden, and this protocol aims to provide a comprehensive overview of systematic reviews based on network meta-analysis of anti-hyperglycemic agents for T2DM patients. The primary outcomes will be HbA1c and FPG, and the quality of included reviews will be assessed using the AMSTAR-2 tool and GRADE. The results will be disseminated through publications, conferences, clinical networks, and consumer networks.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Derek W. Brown, Liam D. Cato, Yajie Zhao, Satish K. Nandakumar, Erik L. Bao, Eugene J. Gardner, Aubrey K. Hubbard, Alexander Depaulis, Thomas Rehling, Lei Song, Kai Yu, Stephen J. Chanock, John R. B. Perry, Vijay G. Sankaran, Mitchell J. Machiela
Summary: This study reveals that clonal hematopoiesis (CH) types differ in frequency and fitness, suggesting a cellular evolutionary trade-off between the different types. It also highlights the increased risk of lymphoid and myeloid malignancies in individuals with overlapping types of CH.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2023)
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Ali Mahmoodi, Hamed Nili, Dan Bang, Carsten Mehring, Bahador Bahrami
Summary: This study reveals that informational conformity and normative conformity have distinct behavioral and neural markers. The neural activity associated with informational conformity tracks both human and computer interactions, while the neural activity associated with normative conformity only tracks human interactions.
Article
Chemistry, Analytical
Bystrik Dolnik, L'ubos Sarpataky, Iraida Kolcunova, Peter Havran
Summary: Insulators are crucial for ensuring the reliability of electricity supply. Their failure can result in significant economic problems and the need for diagnostics is important. This article presents results obtained from investigating porcelain insulators using various diagnostic quantities. Pollution and humidity are the main factors affecting the insulator's electric strength and reliability.
Article
Biochemistry & Molecular Biology
Shaohan Jiang, Sidong Wang, Xiaohong Wan
Summary: Metacognition and mentalizing are both associated with meta-level mental state representations. This study used fMRI to investigate the neural representations of decision uncertainty in monitoring different targets in a perceptual decision-making task. The results revealed distinct neural computations and representations in different brain regions for metacognition and mentalizing, suggesting different internal mental state processes for decision uncertainty.
Article
Nutrition & Dietetics
Alexandra D. George, Melvin C. L. Gay, Jayashree Selvalatchmanan, Federico Torta, Anne K. Bendt, Markus R. Wenk, Kevin Murray, Mary E. Wlodek, Donna T. Geddes
Summary: The study revealed the crucial role of lipids in the human milk fat globule membrane (MFGM) for infant growth and development. Significant variations in lipid intake and concentrations were observed between different mother-infant pairs and different months, with many phospholipid species showing positive correlations with infant growth. The high variability in lipid intake was identified as an important factor in infant growth, with strong correlations between the intake of many MFGM lipids and infant head circumference and weight.
Review
Neurosciences
Gord Fishell, Adam Kepecs
ANNUAL REVIEW OF NEUROSCIENCE, VOL 43
(2020)
Letter
Neurosciences
Michael Browning, Cameron S. Carter, Christopher Chatham, Hanneke Den Ouden, Claire M. Gillan, Justin T. Baker, Adam M. Chekroud, Roshan Cools, Peter Dayan, James Gold, Rita Z. Goldstein, Catherine A. Hartley, Adam Kepecs, Rebecca P. Lawson, Janaina Mourao-Mir, Mary L. Phillips, Diego A. Pizzagalli, Albert Powers, David Rindskopf, Jonathan P. Roiser, Katharina Schmack, Daniela Schiller, Miriam Sebold, Klaas Enno Stephan, Michael J. Frank, Quentin Huys, Martin Paulus
BIOLOGICAL PSYCHIATRY
(2020)
Article
Neurosciences
Armin Lak, Michael Okun, Morgane M. Moss, Harsha Gurnani, Karolina Farrell, Miles J. Wells, Charu Bai Reddy, Adam Kepecs, Kenneth D. Harris, Matteo Carandini
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
MohammadMehdi Kafashan, Anna W. Jaffe, Selmaan N. Chettih, Ramon Nogueira, Inigo Arandia-Romero, Christopher D. Harvey, Ruben Moreno-Bote, Jan Drugowitsch
Summary: Information about the direction of a moving visual stimulus is distributed across hundreds of neurons in mouse primary visual cortex, scaling sub-linearly due to correlated noise. The study predicts that tens of thousands of neurons encode 95% of the information, supporting the idea of a redundant code in the brain.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2021)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
K. Schmack, M. Bosc, T. Ott, J. F. Sturgill, A. Kepecs
Summary: Hallucination-like perception in mice was found to be correlated with elevated dopamine levels and could be induced by optogenetic stimulation, providing insights into the neural circuit mechanisms underlying hallucinations. These findings suggest potential for developing circuit-based treatments for psychotic disorders.
Article
Biology
Anthony Jang, Ravi Sharma, Jan Drugowitsch
Summary: This study introduces a normative decision-making model that takes into account the impact of attention on information reliability and controls fixation changes to optimize information gathering. The research found that decision performance benefits from a balanced allocation of resources between attended and unattended items.
Article
Engineering, Electrical & Electronic
Anna Kutschireiter, Luke Rast, Jan Drugowitsch
Summary: Angular path integration is the ability of a system to estimate its own heading direction from potentially noisy angular velocity observations. This paper presents an approximate solution for continuous-time filtering in circular symmetry, which integrates state increment observations while maintaining a fixed representation. The proposed algorithm, named the circular Kalman filter, is analytically accessible, interpretable, and outperforms alternative filters based on a Gaussian approximation.
IEEE TRANSACTIONS ON SIGNAL PROCESSING
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Emma L. Krause, Jan Drugowitsch
Summary: This study finds that awake hippocampal sharp-wave ripples (SWRs) can simulate trajectories with momentum, while replay events during sleep lack this momentum. Previous analysis of replayed trajectories for navigational planning was biased by the heuristic SWR sub-selection.
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Torben Ott, Paul Masset, Thiago S. Gouvea, Adam Kepecs
Summary: Rational decision makers aim to maximize gains, but biases and distortions often affect humans and animals in their decision-making. A recent study found that humans, mice, and rats fall victim to the sunk cost fallacy in economic decisions. By using a computational model, researchers were able to illustrate how a rational decision maker's behavior can be replicated and proposed a new task design to differentiate sunk costs from decision valuation fluctuations.
Article
Biology
Marion Rouault, Aurelien Weiss, Junseok K. Lee, Jan Drugowitsch, Valerian Chambon, Valentin Wyart
Summary: In uncertain environments, seeking information is crucial for adaptive learning and decision-making. However, this study found that information seeking is often confused with changes-of-mind about the reliability of the preferred option. The researchers discovered that changes-of-mind with control require more evidence against the current option, are associated with reduced confidence, but are more likely to be confirmed on the next decision. The findings suggest that information seeking amplifies the saliency of evidence perceived as the direct consequence of one's own actions.
Article
Psychology, Biological
Julie Drevet, Jan Drugowitsch, Valentin Wyart
Summary: A study shows that humans avoid changes-of-mind by ignoring unreliable stimuli when monitoring the source of noisy stimuli. They update their beliefs only when the reliability of incoming sensory information is judged as strong, reducing belief variability and improving decision accuracy.
NATURE HUMAN BEHAVIOUR
(2022)
Article
Neurosciences
Amelia J. Christensen, Torben Ott, Adam Kepecs
Summary: The frontal cortex, responsible for advanced cognitive abilities, shows diverse neural activity. Two approaches, one focusing on dynamic trajectories and the other on cell-type diversity, have been successful in addressing this challenge. This study proposes a combination of population and cell-type-specific approaches, suggesting cell-type constraints inherited through evolution create the foundation for frontal population dynamics.
CURRENT OPINION IN NEUROBIOLOGY
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Johannes Bill, Samuel J. Gershman, Jan Drugowitsch
Summary: This article presents a theory of how the human brain infers motion relations in real time and offers a unified explanation for various perceptual phenomena. The proposed online hierarchical Bayesian inference provides a principled solution for this complex perceptual task and explains human percepts for different stimuli. It also makes testable predictions for future psychophysics experiments and motivates targeted neural network implementations.
NATURE COMMUNICATIONS
(2022)
Article
Multidisciplinary Sciences
Anna Kutschireiter, Melanie A. Basnak, Rachel I. Wilson, Jan Drugowitsch
Summary: Working memories are held in attractor networks in the brain, but they do not represent uncertainty. This study shows how uncertainty can be incorporated into a ring attractor encoding head direction. By retuning the connections within the ring attractor, network activity can be adjusted based on the quality and conflicting evidence, resulting in near-optimal performance. The findings have implications for understanding the brain's ability to track direction and make predictions.
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
(2023)
Article
Biology
Jean-Paul Noel, Johannes Bill, Haoran Ding, John Vastola, Gregory C. DeAngelis, Dora E. Angelaki, Jan Drugowitsch
Summary: A key computation in building adaptive internal models of the external world is the process of causal inference, which assigns sensory signals to their likely cause(s). Existing studies have mainly focused on causal inference in two-alternative forced-choice tasks, while less is known about its application in naturalistic action-perception loops. This study examines the disambiguation of retinal motion caused by self- and/or object-motion during closed-loop navigation. Normative accounts and empirical findings suggest that humans tend to misattribute object-motion to the self, especially during passive self-motion and when targets are presented eccentrically. The study also reveals the modulation of gaze pursuit by target velocity during object-only motion, but not during concurrent object- and self-motion. These findings contribute to our understanding of causal inference within action-perception loops.
PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B-BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES
(2023)