Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-wq2xx Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-25T04:40:36.869Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

The Bayesian brain: What is it and do humans have it?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 November 2019

Dobromir Rahnev Open the ORCID record for Dobromir Rahnev [Opens in a new window]
Dobromir Rahnev*
Affiliation:
School of Psychology, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA30332. rahnev@psych.gatech.eduwww.rahnevlab.gatech.edu
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

It has been widely asserted that humans have a “Bayesian brain.” Surprisingly, however, this term has never been defined and appears to be used differently by different authors. I argue that Bayesian brain should be used to denote the realist view that brains are actual Bayesian machines and point out that there is currently no evidence for such a claim.

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 42 , 2019 , e238
Check for updates
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Block, N. (2018) If perception is probabilistic, why does it not seem probabilistic? Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences 373:20170341 Available at: http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/lookup/doi/10.1098/rstb.2017.0341.Google Scholar
Friston, K. (2012) The history of the future of the Bayesian brain. Neuroimage 62:1230–33. Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22023743. [Accessed March 23, 2019.]CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Griffiths, T. L., Chater, N., Norris, D. & Pouget, A. (2012) How the Bayesians got their beliefs (and what those beliefs actually are): Comment on Bowers and Davis (2012). Psychological Bulletin 138:415–22 Available at: http://doi.apa.org/getdoi.cfm?doi=10.1037/a0026884.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Knill, D. C. & Pouget, A. (2004) The Bayesian brain: The role of uncertainty in neural coding and computation. Trends in Neurosciences 27(12):712–719 Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15541511 [Accessed July 10, 2014].CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Ma, W. J. (2012) Organizing probabilistic models of perception. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 16:511–18 Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22981359. [Accessed March 2, 2013.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rahnev, D. & Denison, R. N. (2018) Suboptimality in perceptual decision making. Behavioral and Brain Sciences 41:E223.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sanborn, A. N. & Chater, N. (2016) Bayesian brains without probabilities. Trends in Cognitive Sciences 20:883–93. Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2016.10.003.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Yeon, J. & Rahnev, D. (2019) The nature of the perceptual representation for decision making. bioRxiv:537068 Available at: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/537068v1. [Accessed March 5, 2019.]CrossRefGoogle Scholar