Dartmouth Events

Organized knowledge for learning, memory, and decision making

Abstract: An adaptive learning system must learn both the repeated structure of the world, and how to update knowledge when the environment changes. Each of these demands elicits intriguing cognitive tensions. For example, as we re-experience the same routine of events, we have ample opportunities to integrate events in our minds, but too much integration could result in a loss of context-relevant knowledge and fine-grained details. When updating our knowledge, leveraging existing knowledge can enhance new learning, but that same knowledge might also interfere and be inconsistent with novel information. I combine behavior, neuroimaging, and computational models to address these questions, focusing on how knowledge is organized, updated, and utilized to guide behavior. From hippocampal subregions to hippocampal-prefrontal interactions, I’ll show how our brain uses multiple systems and representations, effectively integrating and separating information at different levels to facilitate adaptive learning and memory.