
How the Human Brain Decides What Is Important and What’s Not - baalcat
http://neurosciencenews.com/importance-neuroscience-decisions-5967/
======
tetrep
> ...we learn about what we attend to, and we attend to what we learned high
> values for.

I see this a lot when I'm trying to help people who "should" know what they're
doing. I focus on trying to identify what they're not noticing, and then
bringing it to their attention. It makes for great light-touch teaching and
lets me, in retrospec, provide better
introductions/instructions/documentation/whatever by adding in whatever
stimuli they overlooked.

OT: the article has a terrible introduction. almost entirely unrelated to the
article, and non-sequitorial. It's like they did a keyword search for quotes
with "attention":

The Wizard of Oz told Dorothy to “pay no attention to that man behind the
curtain” in an effort to distract her, but a new Princeton University study
sheds light on how people learn and make decisions in real-world situations.

~~~
ahussain
This is a really good observation. I've noticed that people who are successful
tend to have an uncanny ability to 'see' the right things. And making good
decisions is often a function of a person's ability to be aware of what is
happening around them.

It's tricky though because I don't know many techniques for expanding one's
field of vision - is it possible to learn to "see the things you cannot see".

~~~
ceejay
I think the "trick" (not really a trick) is to learn to "see things for what
they are". As simple as that sounds, I'm always surprised at how difficult it
seems to be for some people. And how I can easily get caught in that trap if I
am not being disciplined enough with my own thoughts / learning.

Especially obvious when that lack of discipline helps shape the foundation of
one's thoughts on a topic.

~~~
pjc50
Most art courses start with some kind of training in "seeing". What are the
real proportions of something? Can we percieve a face as a collection of light
and dark areas rather than letting our feature-decoding brain make its own
impressions? If you look at the colour of something in isolation, how does it
compare to its perception in a scene? And so on.

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applecore
I just read through the research paper[1] and activity in frontoparietal
network looks eerily similar to the reticular activating system[2] that
heightens alertness and directs attention.

[1]:
[http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273(16)31039-X](http://www.cell.com/neuron/fulltext/S0896-6273\(16\)31039-X)

[2]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_activating_system](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reticular_activating_system)

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crispweed
_For example, when you order something new in a restaurant – perhaps anchovy
pizza — you should learn whether you like or dislike anchovy pizza, rather
than attribute the pleasurable experience to the particular table you’re
sitting at. Or when crossing a street, you should pay attention to the speed
and direction of oncoming traffic, while the colors of cars can be safely
ignored._

So in these two examples it's pretty obvious to most people what we should be
paying attention to. But worth remembering, perhaps, that the same problem of
'what is relevant here' also occurs a lot in situations where it is not so
clear what is the relevant factor. e.g. You have problems with asthma, you
change your diet, the asthma gets better, was the change in diet actually the
relevant factor?

And even in those two 'obvious' examples it's possible to get this wrong. e.g.
You decide you don't like anchovies, but actually this is just because you
went to a bad restaurant, the anchovies were much too salty, and another time
you try better quality / better prepared / better dosed anchovies, and like
them.

I guess my point is that the deciding what is relevant part of this is not
trivial, and strategies and mechanisms for achieving this effectively are
important.

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MR4D
TL:DR... It's recursive - we pay attention to the things that affect us, and
that attention reinforces what we should focus on the next time.

Nice that someone was able to show this. Might be obvious, but proving obvious
things experimentally with the brain often is difficult.

On the downside, that means I'm just a wet neural net. Oh well.

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robertk
This seems recursive or insipid. How do we compute what it is we focus or
attend to? Isn't that the real answer?

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ilaksh
Attention is relevant to artificial intelligence also. See [http://agi-
conf.org/hlai2016/](http://agi-conf.org/hlai2016/) conferences and research
(some on youtube -- search for 'AGI-16').

~~~
aperetto
It's also a large component in many mental disorders (schizophrenia,
tourettes, ocd). Attention really comes down the brain filtering out a mess of
stimulation. When that filtering malfunctions we see mind do very funny
things, e.g. repeated thoughts and delusions.

~~~
SixSigma
And dyslexia

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eli_gottlieb
Without having access to the paper, it would be really nice to see what model
of attention they're using, and how it relates to the expected-reward
calculations they're positing take place for reinforcement learning. I'd also
like to see the authors explain whether the model-free or model-based RL
controller in the brain is the one operating to update endogenous attention
based on expected value.

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zyxzevn
Let me think about this, while driving my car to work, listening to the radio,
drinking some coffee, and with my beloved wife next to me.

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trento
"Error establishing a database connection" haha, site is not working for some
reason!

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xyzzy4
I think your brain is optimized around preventing yourself from losing things
(such as money, items, relationships, etc.). For example, if the hot water is
left on in your house, most adults would rush over and shut it off.

~~~
vtange
If it was really like that, people would not gamble or partake in activities
that endanger their health such as smoke.

~~~
xyzzy4
You can win money from gambling. Also smoking makes people feel good and that
counter-balances the negative health effect for some.

~~~
Retra
Neither of those sounds like an optimization to prevent loss, so what is your
point? That even if you are wrong, you can easily make up alternative
theories?

