Representing action in the human brain

Optimal decision-making entails that we maximise rewards and minimised punishment. Two classes of mechanisms enable such optimization; hardwired, or Pavlovian, policies directly tie affectively important outcomes, together with predictions of these outcomes to valence-dependent behavioural responses. Secondly, a more flexible, goal directed controller learns choices on the basis of their contingent consequence. These controllers tended to favour the same choices rending action fast and efficient. However their underlying workings are often revealed by striking sub-optimality. In this talk I will address how we l…