We had the great pleasure of hosting Professor Lei Zhang (Centre for Human Brain Health & Institute for Mental Health, University of Birmingham) for a guest lecture at the CBBM. Lei talked about how “to crack the neurocomputational mechanisms of flexible (social) behavior.
Abstract: Flexible (learning) behavior refers to the adaptive change of behavior in response to changing environmental contingencies. Although flexible learning behavior has been studied extensively in the past, very little is known about its neurocomputational mechanism. In this talk, I will first illustrate how to assess flexible learning behavior through the lens of computational modeling, then I will showcase two studies, one (fMRI study) focusing on flexible learning in a social context, and the other (behavioral study with large sample) focusing on flexible learning in individuals with autism. These studies are expected to motivate new research avenues in social neuroscience and computational psychiatry