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Tutorial 1: Learning to Predict

Difficulty level
Beginner
Speaker

This tutorial presents how to estimate state-value functions in a classical conditioning paradigm using Temporal Difference (TD) learning and examine TD-errors at the presentation of the conditioned and unconditioned stimulus (CS and US) under different CS-US contingencies. These exercises will provide you with an understanding of both how reward prediction errors (RPEs) behave in classical conditioning and what we should expect to see if Dopamine represents a "canonical" model-free RPE.

Topics covered in this lesson
  • You will learn to use the standard tapped delay line conditioning model
  • You will understand how reward prediction errors (RPEs) move to conditional stimulus (CS)
  • You will understand how variability in reward size effects RPEs
  • You will understand how differences in conditioned and unconditioned stimulus (US-CS) timing effect RPEs
Prerequisites

Experience with Python Programming Language.

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