Abstract:
Studies focusing on the cognitive functions of the lateral intraparietal cortex (LIP) have led to seemingly contradictory conclusions. On the one hand, it was proposed that LIP combines bottom-up perceptual inputs with top-down cognitive biases to create a map of visual space in which the activity at a particular location is a representation of the attentional priority at that location (priority map). On the other hand, others argued that LIP activity seen in the value-based decision-making tasks is a function of reward or subjective value alone (top-down only value map). The outstanding question is whether value representation is a special case of attention representation or whether LIP harbors distinct priority and value map that each drives attention deployment or value-based decisions. We are addressing this question by 1) implementing a value-based decision task in which reward and perceptual salience are independently manipulated; 2) performing an unbiased sampling of the entire LIP. Preliminary results suggest that there is a gradient in representing perceptual salience and value along the anatomical anterior-posterior axis of LIP. We anticipate that our study will provide a more complete picture of the functional heterogeneity of LIP thus help reconcile the contradictory conclusions drawn in previous studies.
*Please note that tea and coffee reception will start at 4:00 PM.
NYU Shanghai STEM Seminar Series - Spring 2018
4:30-5:30 PM, Every Wednesday | Room 204, NYU Shanghai
- March 21: Jeffrey Erlich, Assistant Professor of Neural and Cognitive Sciences
- March 28: Gang Fang, Assistant Professor of Biology
- April 11: Tao Huang, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics
- April 18: Li Li, Associate Professor of Neural Science and Psychology
- April 25: Leonardo T. Rolla, Visiting Assistant Professor of Mathematics
- May 02: Xinying Cai, Assistant Professor of Neural and Cognitive Sciences
- May 09: Hanghui Chen, Assistant Professor of Physics
This event is for NYU Shanghai community. External attendees please RSVP HERE.