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SUMMARY:The Bayesian brain\, free energy and psychopathology - Karl Fristo
 n\, University College London
DTSTART:20130523T113000Z
DTEND:20130523T123000Z
UID:TALK45577@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Dr James Kirkbride
DESCRIPTION:How much about our interaction with - and experience of - our 
 world can be deduced from basic principles? This talk reviews recent attem
 pts to understand the self-organised behaviour of embodied agents\, like o
 urselves\, as satisfying basic imperatives for sustained exchanges with th
 e environment. In brief\, one simple driving force appears to explain many
  aspects of perception and action - the minimisation of surprise or predic
 tion error. In the context of perception\, this corresponds to Bayes-optim
 al predictive coding (that suppresses exteroceptive prediction\nerrors) an
 d - in the context of action - reduces to classical motor reflexes (that s
 uppress proprioceptive prediction errors). We will look at some of the phe
 nomena that emerge from this single principle\; such as perceptual synthes
 is and action selection. I will focus on the key role of precision in maki
 ng predictions under uncertainty. Neurobiologically\, precision may be enc
 oded by the postsynaptic gain of neuronal populations reporting prediction
  error and is a clear target of neuromodulatory pathologies implicated in 
 many psychiatric disorders. I hope to illustrate this using simulations of
  in hallucinations and failures of affordance\, of the sort seen schizophr
 enia and Parkinson's disease.
LOCATION:Seminar Room\, Herchel Smith Building
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