Brain Inspired - BI 073 Megan Peters: Consciousness and Metacognition

BI 073 Megan Peters: Consciousness and Metacognition

06/10/20 • 85 min

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Megan and I discuss her work using metacognition as a way to study subjective awareness, or confidence. We talk about using computational and neural network models to probe how decisions are related to our confidence, the current state of the science of consciousness, and her newest project using fMRI decoded neurofeedback to induce particular brain states in subjects so we can learn about conscious and unconscious brain processing.

Notes:

Visit Megan's cognitive & neural computation lab.
Twitter: @meganakpeters
The papers we discuss or mention:
- Human intracranial electrophysiology suggests suboptimal calculations underlie perceptual confidence
- Tuned normalization in perceptual decision-making circuits can explain seemingly suboptimal confidence behavior.

Notes:

Visit Megan's cognitive & neural computation lab.
Twitter: @meganakpeters
The papers we discuss or mention:
- Human intracranial electrophysiology suggests suboptimal calculations underlie perceptual confidence
- Tuned normalization in perceptual decision-making circuits can explain seemingly suboptimal confidence behavior.

Previous Episode

BI 072 Mazviita Chirimuuta: Understanding, Prediction, and Reality

Mazviita and I discuss the growing divide between prediction and understanding as neuroscience models and deep learning networks become bigger and more complex. She describes her non-factive account of understanding, which among other things suggests that the best predictive models may deliver less understanding. We also discuss the brain as a computer metaphor, and whether it's really possible to ignore all the traditionally "non-computational" parts of the brain like metabolism and other life processes.

Show notes:

Her website.
Outside color website (with links to more of her publications)
Her book Outside Color: Perceptual Science and the Puzzle of Color in Philosophy.
Papers we discuss or mention:

Next Episode

BI 074 Ginger Campbell: Are You Sure?

Ginger and I discuss her book Are You Sure? The Unconscious Origins of Certainty, which summarizes Richard Burton's work exploring the experience and phenomenal origin of feeling confident, and how the vast majority of our brain processing occurs outside our conscious awareness.