By SCNU
hits
Title: The neurocomputational mechanisms underlying the learning of cognitive control
Time：14th September 2018（Friday）10:00 to 11:00 Am
Address：Rm. 201, School of Psychology
Speaker：Jiefeng Jiang, Ph.D. Department of Psychology, Stanford University
Personal profile：
Education and training:
2016-pres Postdoctoral Research Associate, Department of Psychology, Stanford University, USA
2014-2016 Postdoctoral Research Associate, Center for Cognitive Neuroscience, Duke University, USA
2009-2014 Ph.D in Psychology, Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Duke University, USA
Research interests:
Cognitive control
learning, memory
the interaction among them
Abstract:
“Cognitive control” refers to a collection of neurocognitive mechanisms that align behavior with internal goals through top-down modulations on neural information processing, and hence plays a key role in adaptive behavior. Despite of its importance in adaptive behavior, cognitive control is costly, both in terms of consuming limited cognitive processing capacity and in terms of the opportunity cost of not dedicating that processing capacity to other cognitive functions. Ideally, the exertion of control should therefore be carefully titrated to achieve a desired goal while limiting potential costs. This gives rise to a central question in current cognitive psychology and neuroscience: how does the brain know how much cognitive control is needed? Recent theoretical advances provide a new perspective on the regulation of cognitive control based on expectations of cognitive control demand. This has sharpened the aforementioned question to ‘how does the brain learn and predict cognitive control demand, and adjust cognitive control accordingly?’ In this talk, I will present some of our recent work to address this question.