Skip to main content
Duke University Libraries
DukeSpace Scholarship by Duke Authors
  • Login
  • Ask
  • Menu
  • Login
  • Ask a Librarian
  • Search & Find
  • Using the Library
  • Research Support
  • Course Support
  • Libraries
  • About
View Item 
  •   DukeSpace
  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Duke Dissertations
  • View Item
  •   DukeSpace
  • Theses and Dissertations
  • Duke Dissertations
  • View Item
JavaScript is disabled for your browser. Some features of this site may not work without it.

The Neurocomputational Basis of Serial Decision-Making

Thumbnail
View / Download
12.9 Mb
Date
2017
Author
Abzug, Zachary Mitchell
Advisor
Sommer, Marc A
Repository Usage Stats
263
views
193
downloads
Abstract

A hallmark of human behavior is serial decision-making, in which decisions are linked across time: the choices we make are informed by our past decisions and, in turn, influence our future decisions. Flexible, accurate goal-directed behavior breaks down when decisions become inconsistent with previous decisions and their outcomes. Such impairments contribute to the difficulty that people with schizophrenia and other psychiatric disorders have functioning in society. While there has been a large amount of research investigating the behavioral and neuronal mechanisms responsible for making individual decisions, there is a dearth of research on serial decision-making. The goal of my work has been to establish the formal study of serial decision-making and provide a psychophysical, computational, and neural foundation for future work. In Study 1, we showed that rhesus monkeys, a prime animal model for decision-making, can perform serial decision-making in a novel rule-selection task. The animals selected behavioral rules rationally and used those rules to flexibly discriminate between complex visual stimuli. In Study 2, we had human and monkey subjects perform variations on the rule-selection task to study how behavioral strategies for serial decision-making are dependent on task characteristics. We developed a set of normative probabilistic behavioral models and used Bayesian model selection to determine which model features best explained the observed behavioral data. Specifically, we found that whether or not humans use sensory information (in addition to reward information) to guide their future decisions is dependent on the lower-level features of the task. In Study 3, we investigated the role of one particular brain region, the supplementary eye field (SEF), in serial decision-making. The SEF is part of frontal cortex and sits at the intersection of oculomotor function and broader cognition, and previous studies have implicated it in linking sequences of decisions. We found that neuronal activity in the SEF encoded the rules used for decisions, predicted the outcomes of future decisions, and reacted to the outcomes of past decisions. The two outcome-related signals match what we expect of control signals necessary for flexibly and adaptively updating stimulus values in accordance with past decisions. Taken together, these three studies demonstrate that serial decision-making strategies are dependent on decision context and that the SEF may contribute to serial decision-making in dynamic environments.

Type
Dissertation
Department
Biomedical Engineering
Subject
Biomedical engineering
Neurosciences
decision-making
executive control
neuroengineering
reinforcement learning
supplementary eye field
Permalink
https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16361
Citation
Abzug, Zachary Mitchell (2017). The Neurocomputational Basis of Serial Decision-Making. Dissertation, Duke University. Retrieved from https://hdl.handle.net/10161/16361.
Collections
  • Duke Dissertations
More Info
Show full item record
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Rights for Collection: Duke Dissertations


Works are deposited here by their authors, and represent their research and opinions, not that of Duke University. Some materials and descriptions may include offensive content. More info

Make Your Work Available Here

How to Deposit

Browse

All of DukeSpaceCommunities & CollectionsAuthorsTitlesTypesBy Issue DateDepartmentsAffiliations of Duke Author(s)SubjectsBy Submit DateThis CollectionAuthorsTitlesTypesBy Issue DateDepartmentsAffiliations of Duke Author(s)SubjectsBy Submit Date

My Account

LoginRegister

Statistics

View Usage Statistics
Duke University Libraries

Contact Us

411 Chapel Drive
Durham, NC 27708
(919) 660-5870
Perkins Library Service Desk

Digital Repositories at Duke

  • Report a problem with the repositories
  • About digital repositories at Duke
  • Accessibility Policy
  • Deaccession and DMCA Takedown Policy

TwitterFacebookYouTubeFlickrInstagramBlogs

Sign Up for Our Newsletter
  • Re-use & Attribution / Privacy
  • Harmful Language Statement
  • Support the Libraries
Duke University