Perception, action and consciousness

Goals

This course introduces main theoretical and methodological accounts to study automatic and voluntary decision-making processes, from the encoding of states of the world, optimality principles in perception and action to sequential action, and decision-making with uncertainty.

Course plan

1. Block I: Automatic and voluntary control of action

1.1. Levels of action control

1.2. Unconscious action control

1.3. Cognitive control and conflict monitoring

2. Block II: Sensorimotor decision-making

2.1. The psychophysics of perception and action

2.2. Prediction in the sensory and motor systems: evidences from eye-movements

3. Block III: Language and action control

3.1. Dissociations in action control

3.2. Dissociations in decision-making

3.3. Improving action control and decision-making

Assessment

Questionnaire at the end of each block (80%)

Class activities, including oral discussion and written report of a selected paper (20%) Students having obtained a final grade below 5 (range 3 - 4.9) can be re-evaluated by taking a final exam/exercise. If passed the final grade will be 5.

Examination-based assessment

Exam at the end of the course (100%)

Students having obtained a final grade below 5 (range 3 - 4.9) can be re-evaluated by taking a final exam/exercise. If passed the final grade will be 5.

Bibliography

Krakauer, J. et al. (2019). Motor learning. Comprehensive Physiology, 9:613–663.

Haggard, P. (2019). The neurocognitive bases of human volition. Annual review of psychology, 70, 9-28.

de la Malla, C., & López-Moliner, J. (2015). Predictive plus online visual information optimizes temporal precision in interception. Journal of experimental psychology: human perception and performance, 41(5), 1271.

Tubau, E., Hommel, B., and López-Moliner, J. (2007b). Modes of executive control in sequence learning: from stimulus-based to plan-based control. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 136:43–63.

Hayhoe, M. M. (2017) Vision and Action. Annual Reviews Vision Sciences 3, 389-413.

Tubau, E. and López-Moliner, J. (2009). Knowing what to respond in the future does not cancel the influence of past events. PLoS ONE, 4(5):1–6.

Brenner, E. and Smeets, JBJ. (2018) Continuously updating one’s predictions underlies successful interception. Journal of Neurophysiology, 120, 3257-3274

Sumner, P., & Husain, M. (2008). At the edge of consciousness: automatic motor activation and voluntary control. The Neuroscientist, 14(5), 474-486.