講座名稱 Mechanisms of perceptual and behavioral preferences in macaque monkeys

主講人 葉俊毅 

講座日期 2019-05-03

講座時間 13:10-15:00

講座地點 北棟2樓階梯教室

英文演說 否

主辦系所 心理學系

備註 演講相關內容如下：

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時間：5 /3（五）13：10

 

地點：社科院北棟2樓心理系階梯教室

 

講題：Mechanisms of perceptual and behavioral preferences in macaque monkeys

 

講者：葉俊毅 (國立台灣大學心理學系 助理教授)

 

演講摘要： 

 

My presentation will be divided into two parts: the first part is about dark preference in visual perception and its underlying cortical mechanism, and the second part is about preference of fairness when monkeys are behind the veil of ignorance.

 

Perceptual preference. Many neurons in the superficial layer 2/3 of macaque V1 (but not in the input layer 4C) show stronger responses to black than to white stimuli (Yeh et al 2009; Xing et al 2010). One possible neural mechanism for the ample black preference within V1 is through recurrent connections in the superficial layer – the black-dominant signal of the multi-unit activity in layer 2/3 is more sustained than that of the local field potential (Xing et al 2010). Here we report some latest findings showing that strong feedforward connections among black-dominant cell pairs may also play an important role in amplifying the bias. There was a strong tendency that the magnitude of the synchronization among black-dominant cell pairs was on average higher than that among white-dominant cell pairs, especially for those across-layer cells pairs (layer-4 and layer-2/3). Moreover, the width of the peak of the cross-correlogram was broader for black-dominant cell pairs than for white-dominant cell pairs, in agreement with the finding that black stimuli generated higher sustained responses than white stimuli (Xing et al, 2014). Overall, both recurrent and feedforward connections contribute to the ample black-over-white bias.

 

Behavioral preference. The veil of ignorance (VOI) thought experiment is helpful in revealing how animal reacts to inequity. We studied choices behind the VOI in Formosa macaques, attempting to shed light on how fairness might be determined. We found that monkeys appeared more equal-minded behind the VOI than in a corresponding risky environment, suggesting the influence of other-regarding concerns. This higher tendency to be equal-minded behind the VOI correlated with the strength of disadvantageous other-regarding preference such as the aversion to fall behind, which further correlated with the body weight of the decision maker. These results suggest the importance of disadvantageous other-regarding preference in explaining more equal choices behind the VOI.

 

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敬請準時出席，謝謝。