BE Seminar: “The Neurobiology of Mistakes” (Becket Ebitz, Universite de Montreal

Humans and other animals do not always choose the most rewarding course of action, even when we have ample time and computational resources.Why do we make mistakes? The noiseLab uses a combination of theoretical, behavioral, and neurobiological techniques to address this question. In this talk, Dr. Becket Ebitz will discuss converging evidence that mistakes are the product of representational and temporal nonlinearities in neural activity that constrain our ability to make good decisions. The talk will argue that some of these nonlinearities have long-term adaptive benefits, even when they fail to produce the best decision in the moment.

Zoom Link:  https://upenn.zoom.us/j/92192304656

Becket Ebitz is the Canada Research Chair in the Dynamics of Cognition and the head of the noiseLab at the Université de Montréal. The lab studies the neural basis of mistakes: how constraints on neural processing cause us to misperceive, misremember, and mistakenly choose. The lab combines 1) large-scale neural recordings and brain stimulation in the non-human primate, 2) human psychophysics, and 3) innovative computational methods and models. The tight integration of theory and experiment is part of why the lab regularly publishes in high profile neuroscience and general interest biology journals, like Neuron, Nature Communications, Nature Neuroscience, and Current Biology. The lab is funded by several national and international grants, including awards from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research, the US Air Force Office of Scientific Research, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research, and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation. In addition to holding a prestigious Canada Research Chair, Becket has also been awarded a variety of other honors, including a CV Starr Fellowship from Princeton University, a Promising Investigator Award from RippleNeuro, a Research Fellowship from the Jacobs Foundation, and was named a Research Scholar by the Fonds de Recherche du Québec.