Decision Making

This lesson provides an introduction to the Decision Making course, specifically focusing on hidden states in neural systems. 

This tutorial introduces the Sequential Probability Ratio Test between two hypotheses 𝐻𝐿 and 𝐻𝑅 by running simulations of a Drift Diffusion Model (DDM). As independent and identically distributed (i.i.d) samples from the true data-generating distribution coming in, we accumulate our evidence linearly until a certain criterion is met before deciding which hypothesis to accept. Two types of stopping criterion/stopping rule will be implemented: after seeing a fixed amount of data, and after the likelihood ratio passes a pre-defined threshold. Due to the noisy nature of observations, there will be a drifting term governed by expected mean output and a diffusion term governed by observation noise.

This tutorial covers how to simulate a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) and observe how changing the transition probability and observation noise impacts what the samples look like. Then we'll look at how uncertainty increases as we make future predictions without evidence (from observations) and how to gain information from the observations.

This tutorial covers how to infer a latent model when our states are continuous. Particular attention is paid to the Kalman filter and its mathematical foundation.

This lecture covers multiple topics on dynamical neural modeling and inference and their application to basic neuroscience and neurotechnology design.