CSAIL Event Calendar: Previous Series
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The Simulation Engine of the Brain Speaker: Dr. Demis Hassabis , Wellcome Trust Research Fellow, Gatsby Computational Neuroscience Unit, UCL Relevant URL: http://cbcl.mit.edu In daily life, people frequently imagine future events, such as how a dinner date might unfold. Such 'simulations' are typically mentally played out in a rich spatial context, and often involve the presence of people and their concomitant thoughts and behaviors. It has been proposed that a common 'core' brain network supports the simulation of past, future, or hypothetical experiences. I will describe a series of fMRI and patient studies exploring the neural mechanisms that underpin this simulation system, and also cover the key sub-processes involved such as scene construction and personality modeling. Finally, I will address some of the most topical theoretical issues including the adaptive advantage of such a simulation system and its intriguing connections to the latest artificial intelligence research for efficient planning in artificial agents. See other events that are part of Brains and Machines Seminar Series 2011/2012 |
