Year: 2020
Type: preprint
Abstract: This paper challenges a common assumption about decision- making mechanisms in humans: decision-making is a distinctively high-level cognitive activity implemented by mechanisms concentrated in the higher-level areas of the cortex. We argue instead that human behavior is controlled by a multiplicity of highly distributed, heterarchically organized decision-making mechanisms. We frame it in terms of control mechanisms that procure and evaluate information to select activities of controlled mechanisms and adopt a phylogenetic perspective, showing how decision-making is realized in control mechanisms in a variety of species. We end by discussing this picture's implication for high-level cognitive decision-making.
Authors: Linus Ta-Lun Huang, William Bechtel
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Academia Sinica
OpenAlex ID: W3033558466