Mechanisms of Motivated Decision Making

How do we make decisions? This course considers the factors and mechanisms involved in motivated decision making, as informed by cognitive, neuroscientific, and computational modeling approaches. Readings will span a range of populations (e.g., healthy adults, adults with acquired brain damage, monkeys) and methods (e.g., behavioral, genetic, pharmacological and neuroimaging studies, electrophysiological recordings). Computational models will be prominently featured as a means for formalizing decision making theories across multiple levels of analysis, some focusing on high-level cognitive computations and others on neural mechanisms. Prerequisite: CPSY 0010 , 1291 , 1400 , 1491 , 1492 , or NEUR 0010 . Enrollment limited to 20. Not open to first year students.