The prominence of Bayesian modeling of cognition has increased recently largely because
of mathematical advances in specifying and deriving predictions from complex probabilistic …

Perceptual choices depend not only on the current sensory input but also on the behavioral
context, such as the history of one's own choices. Yet, it remains unknown how such history …

Learning an accurate representation of the environment is a difficult task for both animals
and humans, because the causal structures of the environment are unobservable and must …

In the perceptual sciences, experimenters study the causal mechanisms of perceptual
systems by probing observers with carefully constructed stimuli. It has long been known …

Thoughts that appear to come to us 'out of the blue'or 'out of nowhere'are a familiar aspect of
mental experience. Such thoughts tend to elicit feelings of surprise and spontaneity …

Reinforcement learning models of human and animal learning usually concentrate on how
we learn the relationship between different stimuli or actions and rewards. However, in real …

The brain constantly infers the causes of the inputs it receives and uses these inferences to
generate statistical expectations about future observations. Experimental evidence for these …

Why do comprehenders process repeated stimuli more rapidly than novel stimuli? We
consider an adaptive explanation for why such facilitation may be beneficial: priming is a …

Perceptual decisions are based on sensory information but can also be influenced by
expectations built from recent experiences. Can the impact of expectations be flexibly …

Binary choice tasks, such as 2-alternative forced choice, show a complex yet consistent
pattern of sequential effects, whereby responses and response times depend on the …