Category: Biology of Information
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Bayesian Models of Cognition
“Bayesian Models of Cognition Reverse Engineering the Mind” is a new MIT-press Open Access book available for online reading. The definitive introduction to Bayesian cognitive science, written by pioneers of the field. How does human intelligence work, in engineering terms? How do our minds get so much from so little? Bayesian models of cognition provide…
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Predecisional information search adaptively reduces uncertainty
“Predecisional information search adaptively reduces three typesof uncertainty“ How do people search for information when they are given the opportunity to freely explore their options? Information search is an integral part of the decision-making process. Every choice we make is based on information that must first be obtained. In many cases, information search is inherently…
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The Universal Optimism of the Self-Evidencing Mind
“The Universal Optimism of the Self-Evidencing Mind“:Karl Friston’s free-energy principle casts agents as self-evidencing through active inference. This implies that decision-making, planning and information-seeking are, in a generic sense, ‘wishful’. We take an interdisciplinary perspective on this perplexing aspect of the free-energy principle and unpack the epistemological implications of wishful thinking under the free-energy principle.…
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Nature heals
“Nature heals: An informational entropy account of self-organization and change in field psychotherapy“Highlights This paper reviews biophysical models of psychotherapeutic change based on synergetics and the free energy principle. These models suggest that introducing sensory surprise into the patient-therapist system can lead to self-organization and the formation of new attractor states, disrupting entrenched patterns of…
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Affect-centered account of motivated behavior
“The affective gradient hypothesis: an affect-centered account of motivated behavior“: everyone agrees that feelings and actions are intertwined, but cannot agree how. According to dominant models, actions are directed by estimates of value and these values shape or are shaped by affect. The article proposes instead that affect is the only form of value that…
