Deciding with Limited Cognitive Resources
COM3 Level 1
SR12, COM3 01-21
Abstract:
How do you decide what to eat when visiting Maxwell Food Centre? Perhaps you sample different foods from a variety of stalls, but if you're short on time or mentally taxed after a long day, you might opt for the same chicken rice you always choose. As illustrated here, our decisions are often shaped by constraints on our cognitive resources. My work combines computational modeling and behavioral experiments to explore how these cognitive resource limitations affect decision-making, explaining behavioral phenomena such as choice biases and the use of strategies like "chunking" to reduce mental load. In the second half of the talk, I will highlight a potential neural signature of cost-sensitive action selection in the basal ganglia. Lesion studies in rats reveal that distinct regions of the striatum collaborate to balance cognitively demanding decisions with more automatic, habitual actions. By integrating insights from theory, behavior, and neuroscience, I hope to paint a vivid picture of how our decisions and actions are shaped by the brain’s drive to balance reward and cognitive costs.
Bio:
Dr. Lucy Lai is a TSVP Visiting Scholar at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) in Okinawa, Japan, and an incoming Assistant Teaching Professor at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She studies how humans learn and make decisions under limited cognitive resources, using tools from reinforcement learning, information theory, and systems neuroscience. Lucy recently completed her Ph.D. in Neuroscience at Harvard University, where she was advised by Sam Gershman. Beyond research, Lucy enjoys teaching and mentoring, writing poetry, and latin dancing.