{"pk":25625,"title":"Evaluating contingencies by a dual system of learning the structure and the\nparameters of the environment","subtitle":null,"abstract":"How does the brain identify stimuli that are relevant for predicting\nimportant events and how does it distinguish spurious\nrelationships from truly predictive ones? We examined two\ncontrasting theoretical frameworks: in the first, learning proceeds\nby considering a fixed hypothesis of the environment’s\nstatistical structure (the set of predictive and causal relationships)\nand adjusting strength parameters for these relationships\nto optimize predictions. In contrast, the second approach directly\nassesses ambiguity in predictive relationships by evaluating\nmultiple hypothesis of the environment’s statistical structure.\nWe compared these frameworks in an animal model of\naversive conditioning, allowing us to also manipulate the underlying\nbrain systems. We show that when facing novel predictive\nstimuli, rats initially adopt a structure learning strategy,\nbut switch to updating parameters during subsequent learning","language":"eng","license":{"name":"","short_name":"","text":null,"url":""},"keywords":[{"word":"Bayesian modeling; Animal cognition; Representation;\nCausal Reasoning"}],"section":"Papers","is_remote":true,"remote_url":"https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6cz7j27b","frozenauthors":[{"first_name":"Tamas","middle_name":"J","last_name":"Madarasz","name_suffix":"","institution":"NYU","department":""},{"first_name":"Joseph","middle_name":"E","last_name":"LeDoux","name_suffix":"","institution":"NYU","department":""},{"first_name":"Joshua","middle_name":"P","last_name":"Johansen","name_suffix":"","institution":"RIKEN Brain Science Institute","department":""}],"date_submitted":null,"date_accepted":null,"date_published":"2015-01-01T18:00:00Z","render_galley":null,"galleys":[{"label":"PDF","type":"pdf","path":"https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/25625/galley/15249/download/"}]}