Simulation of Group Selection Models.

Human altruistic behaviors are heterogeneous across both contexts and people, whereas the neural signatures underlying the heterogeneity remain to be elucidated. To address this issue, we examined the neural signatures underlying the context- and person-dependent altruistic punishment, conjoining event-related fMRI with both task-based and resting-state functional connectivity (RSFC). Acting as an impartial third party, participants decided how to punish norm violators either alone or in the presence of putative others. We found that the presence of others decreased altruistic punishment due to diffusion of responsibility. Those behavioral effects paralleled altered neural responses in the dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (dACC) and putamen. Further, we identified modulation of responsibility diffusion on task-based functional connectivity of dACC with the brain regions implicated in reward processing (i.e., posterior cingulate cortex and amygdala/orbital frontal cortex). Finally, the RSFC results revealed that (i) increased intrinsic connectivity strengths of the putamen with temporoparietal junction and dorsolateral PFC were associated with attenuated responsibility diffusion in altruistic punishment and (ii) increased putamen-dorsomedial PFC connectivity strengths were associated with reduced responsibility diffusion in self-reported responsibility. Taken together, our findings elucidate the context- and person-dependent altruistic behaviors as well as associated neural substrates and thus provide a potential neurocognitive mechanism of heterogeneous human altruistic behaviors. Hum Brain Mapp 38:5535-5550, 2017. © 2017 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

Third-party punishment, as an altruistic behavior, was found to relate to inequity aversion in previous research. Previous researchers have found that altruistic tendencies, as an individual difference, can affect resource division. Here, using the event-related potential (ERP) technique and a third-party punishment of dictator game paradigm, we explored third-party punishments in high and low altruists and recorded their EEG data. Behavioral results showed high altruists (vs. low altruists) were more likely to punish the dictators in unfair offers. ERP results revealed that patterns of medial frontal negativity (MFN) were modulated by unfairness. For high altruists, high unfair offers (90:10) elicited a larger MFN than medium unfair offers (70:30) and fair offers (50:50). By contrast, for low altruists, fair offers elicited larger MFN while high unfair offers caused the minimal MFN. It is suggested that the altruistic tendency effect influences fairness consideration in the early stage of evaluation. Moreover, the results provide further neuroscience evidence for inequity aversion.

Evolutionary theorists have encountered difficulty in explaining how altruistic behavior can evolve. I argue that these theorists have made this task more difficult than it needs to be by focusing their efforts on explaining how nature could select for a strong type of altruism that has powerful selection forces working against it. I argue that switching the focus to a weaker type of altruism renders the project of explaining how altruism can evolve significantly less difficult. I offer a model of weak altruism that can avoid many of the difficulties that evolutionary accounts of altruism have traditionally faced.

In the Ultimatum Game (UG), incurring a cost to punish inequity is commonly termed altruistic punishment. This behaviour is thought to benefit others if the defector becomes more equitable in future interactions. However, clear connections between punishment in the UG and altruistic behaviours outside the laboratory are lacking. We tested the altruistic punishment hypothesis in a sample of extraordinarily altruistic adults, predicting that if punishing inequity is predictive of altruism more broadly, extraordinary altruists should punish more frequently. Results showed that punishment was not more prevalent in extraordinary altruists than controls. However, a self-reported altruism measure previously linked to peer evaluations but not behaviour, and on which extraordinary altruists and controls did not differ, did predict punishment. These findings support suggestions that altruistic punishment in the UG is better termed costly punishment and may be motivated by social, but not necessarily prosocial, concerns. Results also support prior suggestions that self-reported altruism may not reliably predict altruistic behaviour.

The present paper focused on how a third party's social status affects third-party intervention to maintain social fairness. Study 1 adopted a quasi-experimental design. Selecting high and low-status members of real social groups, we observed that high-status individuals intervened more forcibly and more frequently when assessing the fairness of players' behavior in a dictator game (DG). The manifestation of social status is generally divided into power and economic capital. In Study 2a, using the same DG punishment-compensation paradigm we randomly assigned the third party in the lab to high, medium, and low impact conditions, where their actions had relative multiplier effects on the resources retained by dictators and recipients. This tested whether the power to influence the situation would systematically affect third party's behavior. We found that greater influence predicted increased interventions. Study 2b investigated the influence of economic capital or intrinsic wealth on a third party's altruistic behavior by varying how much capital the third party had at their disposal to spend on punishment or recompensing. Having high capital predicted an increase in the size of penalty inflicted or compensation offered, but resource abundance had no effect on the likelihood that the third party would intervene. In conclusion, the paper showed that the social status of the third party truly does affect their altruistic interventions and the impact of social status on altruistic behaviors for maintaining fairness by the third party occurred primarily through the third parties' perception of their power. Furthermore, the influence of gain and loss contexts and social status on third-party punishment and compensation were independent of each other. This paper provided a new perspective for third-party altruistic behaviors and help to clarify the view of social fairness.

The key problem in the controversy over group selection is that of defining a criterion of group selection that identifies a distinct causal process that is irreducible to the causal process of individual selection. We aim to clarify this problem and to formulate an adequate model of irreducible group selection. We distinguish two types of group selection models, labeling them type I and type II models. Type I models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of production of contained individuals. Type II models are invoked to explain differences among groups in their respective rates of production of distinct new groups. Taking Elliott Sober's model as an exemplar, we argue that although type I models have some biological importance—they force biologists to consider the role of group properties in influencing the fitness of organisms—they fail to identify a distinct group-level causal selection process. Type II models if properly framed, however, do identify a group-level causal selection process that is not reducible to individual selection. We propose such a type II model and apply it to some of the major candidates for group selection.

Event Abstract Back to Event Both maternal care and early peer-to-peer interactions shape adult social behaviour in the mouse Ivana D-Andrea1*, Francesca Cirulli1, Igor Branchi1 and Enrico Alleva1 1 Istituto Superiore di Sanita, Section of Behavioural Neurosciences, Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Italy The critical role of early social experiences in shaping brain function and behavior in humans has been widely investigated in animal models exploiting paradigms affecting mother-offspring interaction, such as maternal deprivation and handling. However, these paradigms overlook a second key factor shaping the adult social behavior: peer interactions. In order to investigate the contribution of both factors we developed a new paradigm: Communal Nest(CN), consists in a single nest where three mouse mothers keep their pups together and share care-giving behavior from birth to weaning and mimics the natural ecological niche of the mouse species. According to previous studies, in the CN nest, maternal care and peer interactions are markedly increased compared to mice reared in standard laboratory rearing conditions(SN). In the present study, with the purpose of having several rearing conditions characterized by different levels of maternal care and peer interactions, in each CN nest, the 3 mothers gave birth with an interval between two consecutive deliveries of 3 days. Thus, each CN nest was formed by 3 different groups of animals: oldest, intermediate and youngest pups. We assessed, during the first 14 days of life, maternal behavior and peer interactions and, at adulthood, social behavior in the three CN groups and in SN mice. With regard to maternal behavior, CN-intermediate mice received less care compared to CN-old, CN-young and SN mice. By contrast, SN mice showed lower levels of peer interactions compared to all CN groups. At adulthood, in a social interaction test, CN-oldest and CN-youngest mice appear to have more elaborate social competencies, displaying the behavioural profile of either dominant or subordinate after significantly shorter time compared to CN-intermediate and SN mice. These findings suggest that both maternal care and peer interactions are critical in shaping social competences at adulthood.Contributed by EU project INTELLIMAZE to FC and EA. Conference: 41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting, Rhodes Island, Greece, 13 Sep - 18 Sep, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster presentations Citation: D-Andrea I, Cirulli F, Branchi I and Alleva E (2009). Both maternal care and early peer-to-peer interactions shape adult social behaviour in the mouse. Conference Abstract: 41st European Brain and Behaviour Society Meeting. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.08.2009.09.127 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 08 Jun 2009; Published Online: 08 Jun 2009. * Correspondence: Ivana D-Andrea, Istituto Superiore di Sanita, Section of Behavioural Neurosciences, Department of Cell Biology and Neurosciences, Rome, Italy, ivana.dandrea@iss.it Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Ivana D-Andrea Francesca Cirulli Igor Branchi Enrico Alleva Google Ivana D-Andrea Francesca Cirulli Igor Branchi Enrico Alleva Google Scholar Ivana D-Andrea Francesca Cirulli Igor Branchi Enrico Alleva PubMed Ivana D-Andrea Francesca Cirulli Igor Branchi Enrico Alleva Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Event Abstract Back to Event Action control related local field potentials in the human pedunculopontine nuclei: a single case report Marcus Heldmann1*, Tino Zaehle2, Imke Galazky3, Thomas Münte1, Jürgen Voges4, Hans-Jochen Heinze3 and Hermann Hinrichs3 1 Dep. Neurology, University Medical Center SH, Germany 2 German Centre for Neurodegenerative Diseases (DZNE) Magdeburg, Germany 3 University Department of Neurology, Magdeburg, Germany 4 Department of Stereotactic Neurosurgery, Germany The pedunculopontine nucleus (PPN) is a rostral midbrain structure and an essential part of the reticular activation system and the mesencephalic locomotor region. Anatomically, the PPN is characterized by its reciprocal cholinergic and non-cholinergic connections to the basal ganglia, the thalamus and the spinal cord. It is known from the animal literature that the PPN is not only involved in sleep behavior and the control of movement, but also supports cognitive functions like attention, reward processing and learning. The PPN has recently been identified as a target for deep brain stimulation (DBS) to treat Parkinson Disease and related movement disorders such as progressive supranuclear palsy (PSP) in particular for freezing of gait and postural instability. Thus, the impact of DBS in the PPN on executive functions and the control of motor behavior in humans can be investigated. First behavioral studies reported faster reaction times and improved executive functions under active DBS, indicating an involvement of the PPN in these functions in humans. In the present single case report we recorded local field potentials from the PPN in a 71 years old PSP patient, while he performed two simple motor (tapping/task-switching) paradigms. Results clearly demonstrate an association of intracranially recoded local field potentials in the (left) PPN and the given feedback information that indicated to switch or not to switch the task set. We will discuss this finding as first direct evidence for an involvement of the human PPN in action monitoring mechanisms. Keywords: Intra-cranial Electrophysiology, PPN Conference: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI), Palma, Mallorca, Spain, 25 Sep - 29 Sep, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Abstracts Citation: Heldmann M, Zaehle T, Galazky I, Münte T, Voges J, Heinze H and Hinrichs H (2011). Action control related local field potentials in the human pedunculopontine nuclei: a single case report. Conference Abstract: XI International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience (ICON XI). doi: 10.3389/conf.fnhum.2011.207.00072 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 16 Nov 2011; Published Online: 25 Nov 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Marcus Heldmann, Dep. Neurology, University Medical Center SH, Lübeck, Germany, marcus.heldmann@neuro.uni-luebeck.de Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Marcus Heldmann Tino Zaehle Imke Galazky Thomas Münte Jürgen Voges Hans-Jochen Heinze Hermann Hinrichs Google Marcus Heldmann Tino Zaehle Imke Galazky Thomas Münte Jürgen Voges Hans-Jochen Heinze Hermann Hinrichs Google Scholar Marcus Heldmann Tino Zaehle Imke Galazky Thomas Münte Jürgen Voges Hans-Jochen Heinze Hermann Hinrichs PubMed Marcus Heldmann Tino Zaehle Imke Galazky Thomas Münte Jürgen Voges Hans-Jochen Heinze Hermann Hinrichs Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Event Abstract Back to Event Structure learning in human sequential decision-making Humans daily perform sequential decision-making under uncertainty to choose products, services, careers, and jobs. Studies of sequential decision-making in humans frequently find suboptimal performance relative to an ideal actor that knows the task that generates reward in the environment. This has led to conclusions about how we explore new courses of actions and exploit what we have learned. We argue, however, that humans have uncertainty about both the task and environmental structure, and that task and structure learning can potentially explain much better how people schedule actions, including behaviors previously deemed sub-optimal. We illustrate the task structure learning problem with an important special case that controls optimal exploration/exploitation. In particular, we formulate the structure learning problem using mixtures of two reward models'two-arm and one-arm bandit models'and solve the optimal action selection using Bayesian Reinforcement Learning. These two reward models represent extremes in both the exploration'exploitation tradeoff and computational difficulty'one model needs to balance exploration'exploitation and use long future horizons to compute actions, while the other needs no look-ahead and the action selection is greedy. In simulations, we show that optimal learning with uncertainty about the task structure can produce a range of qualitative behaviors deemed suboptimal in previous studies on sequential binary choice. In our experiments, each of 16 subjects (8 females) ran on 32 bandit tasks, a block of 16 in a two-arm bandits and a block of 16 one-arm bandits. Within blocks, the presentation order was randomized, and the order of the one-arm bandits was randomized across subjects. On average, each task required 48 choices. For two-arm bandits, the subjects made 1194 choices across the 16 tasks, and 925 for the one-arm bandits. Our results show that humans rapidly learn and exploit new reward structure'human behavior tracks the behavior of our structure learning model but is not explained by models that assume the task is known. Other kinds of reward structure learning may account for a broad variety of human decision-making performance. In particular, allowing dependence between the probability of reward at a site and previous actions can produce large changes in decision-making behavior. For instance, in a "foraging" model where reward is collected from a site and probabilistically replenished, optimal strategies will produce choice sequences that alternate between reward sites. Thus, uncertainty about the independence of reward on previous actions can produce a continuum of behavior, from maximization to probability matching. Instead of explaining behavior in terms of the idiosyncrasies of a learning rule, structure learning constitutes a fully rational response to uncertainty about the causal structure of rewards in the environment. Our hope is that, by expanding the range of normative hypotheses for human decision-making, we can begin to develop more principled accounts of human sequential decision-making behavior. Conference: Computational and systems neuroscience 2009, Salt Lake City, UT, United States, 26 Feb - 3 Mar, 2009. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Poster Presentations Citation: (2009). Structure learning in human sequential decision-making. Front. Syst. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Computational and systems neuroscience 2009. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.06.2009.03.238 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 03 Feb 2009; Published Online: 03 Feb 2009. Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Google Google Scholar PubMed Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

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Recent transcranial magnetic stimulation studies have shown that the motor output pathway shows a profound inhibition during the preparation of an action. This phenomenon, called “preparatory inhibition”, remains incompletely understood, as it is still unclear which neural structures support it and what function it exactly serves during action preparation. In the current study, we tested this preparatory inhibition in Parkinson’s disease (PD) patients and matched healthy control subjects. The aim was to better understand the role of basal ganglia (which are dysfunctional in PD) and the influence of dopamine replacement therapy on motor inhibition during action preparation.

Collective decision-making is important for coordination and synchronization of the activities among group-living animals and the mechanisms guiding such procedure involve a great variety of characteristics of behavior and motivation. This study provides some evidence investigating collective movement initiation in a multi-level social band of the golden snub-nosed monkeys (Rhinopithecus roxellana) located in the Mts. Qinling, China. We collect 1223 datum records relevant to decision initiation from six OMUs. The results indicate that collective movement initiation could be divided into two continual but relatively independent processes: decisions on moving direction and movement implementation. In both processes, adult individuals are more likely to initiate the decision-making, while other adults vote on initiator’s preference, with a threshold, a supporting number required for a success. Thus, voting behavior and quorum fulfillment contribute to a successful decision-making. Adult individuals play important role in making decisions for moving direction and implementation. For a successful collective movement initiation, the individuals being more central in grooming network initiate decisions more frequently than the others, and attract voters more easily. Furthermore, following the initiation, at least four positive voters are required for a direction decision and at least three positive voters are needed for the decision on movement implementation, which could be considered as the threshold of quorum numbers required for a successful decision. This study has provided some very interesting information and scientific evidence in understanding social structure and behaviors of the nonhuman primates with a social structure very similar to humans’. Thus, some results can directly be referred to the comprehension of human social structure and behavior.

Event Abstract Back to Event Does Parkinson’s disease make subjects less Bayesian? Iris Vilares1*, James D. Howard2 and Konrad Körding1, 3, 4 1 Northwestern University and Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, United States 2 Northwestern University, Department of Neurology, United States 3 Northwestern University, Department of Physiology, United States 4 Northwestern University, Department of Applied Mathematics, United States Uncertainty shapes our perception of the world and the decisions we make. Two aspects of uncertainty are commonly distinguished: uncertainty in previously acquired knowledge (prior) and in current sensory information (likelihood). Several behavioral studies have shown that healthy subjects can often integrate information from both of these sources in a way that is close to the statistically optimal, combining them according to their respective uncertainties. However, it is still unclear how these parameters are represented in the brain. Recent work in our lab found that increased prior uncertainty was associated with stronger activations in the putamen. Furthermore, on a subject-by-subject basis, the magnitude of prior-related brain activity in the putamen significantly predicted individuals’ personal tendencies to rely more on prior or current information. These results led us hypothesize that putamen may play a critical role in signaling prior uncertainty and thus in deciding on how much weight to place in prior vs current information. To more directly address this hypothesis, we asked Parkinson Disease (PD) patients to perform a perceptual decision-making task, while varying prior and likelihood uncertainty. PD patients, because of the loss of dopamine-producing neurons, have strong deficits in information transmission from the putamen. Hence, we hypothesized that they would perform sub-optimally, not taking correctly into account prior uncertainty. Preliminary results suggest that this is indeed what happens. Together, our results suggest a causal role of putamen and/or dopamine in transmitting prior uncertainty, and shed a light into the mechanisms that might allow human Bayesian-optimal behavior. Keywords: Bayesian decision theory, Parkinson's disease, Visual Perception Conference: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time, Rauischholzhausen, Germany, 26 Apr - 29 Apr, 2012. Presentation Type: Poster Presentation Topic: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time Citation: Vilares I, Howard JD and Körding K (2012). Does Parkinson’s disease make subjects less Bayesian?. Front. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: Neural Coding, Decision-Making & Integration in Time. doi: 10.3389/conf.fnins.2012.86.00020 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 12 Jan 2012; Published Online: 16 Jan 2012. * Correspondence: Ms. Iris Vilares, Northwestern University and Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, Department of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation, Chicago, United States, irisvilares@gmail.com Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Iris Vilares James D Howard Konrad Körding Google Iris Vilares James D Howard Konrad Körding Google Scholar Iris Vilares James D Howard Konrad Körding PubMed Iris Vilares James D Howard Konrad Körding Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Event Abstract Back to Event Multisensory Integration via Density Estimation Joseph G. Makin1*, Matthew R. Fellows1 and Philip Sabes1 1 University of California at San Francisco, Department of Physiology and Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, United States Multisensory integration is the task of combining redundant (i.e., statistically dependent) environmental cues into a single estimate for a common underlying stimulus; for example, the redundant---but presumably noisy---information about hand position provided by vision and proprioception. Statistically optimal combination of these signals weights them by their precisions (inverse variances) and yields a minimally varying estimator of the stimulus. Human perceptual and sensorimotor behavior have been shown to approach such statistical optimality in a variety of contexts, even when the redundant sensory signals are represented quite differently across modalities. For example, when planning and executing a reaching movement, we appear to approximate maximum-likelihood integration of visual and proprioceptive signals of the arm, despite their disparate encoding and the nonlinear relationship between the spaces of the two signals. Given the complexity of this and similar mappings, it seems likely that the neural mechanisms that implement sensory integration also learn it from experience; and indeed, learning of inter-sensory maps has been shown experimentally, in e.g. the auditory-visual maps of the barn owl. Here we ask how more complex multidimensional maps can be learned de novo by a relatively simple network from the joint statistical properties of the inputs. Our approach is to learn to integrate by extracting the underlying causes from the data, via density estimation in a restricted Boltzmann machine (RBM). We show that the model can: learn to integrate nearly optimally; learn prior distributions over stimuli; integrate additional cues in hierarchical stages; learn to combine two independent cues with a third (as with gaze angle, retinal position, and proprioception); and generate missing data, e.g., to make predictions about one modality based on another, or to plan motor actions based on their hypothesized relationship. Acknowledgements Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency Reorganization and Plasticity to Accelerate Injury Recovery (N66001-10-C-2010). References Barlow, H. B. (1961). "Possible principles underlying the transformation of sensory messages," in Sensory Communication, ed. WA Rosenblith. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press), 217–234. Hinton, G. E. (2002) Training Products of Experts by Minimizing Contrastive Divergence. Neural Computation 14, 1771–1800. Hinton, G. E., Osindero, S., and Teh, Y. (2006) A fast learning algorithm for deep belief net. Neural Computation 18, 1527–1554. Van Beers, R., Sittig, A., and van Der Gon, J. J. D. (1999) Integration of proprioceptive and visual position-information: An experimentally supported model. Journal of Neurophysiology 8, 1355–1364. Keywords: Bayesian optimality, density estimation, machine learning, multisensory integration, Restricted Boltzmann Machine Conference: BC11 : Computational Neuroscience & Neurotechnology Bernstein Conference & Neurex Annual Meeting 2011, Freiburg, Germany, 4 Oct - 6 Oct, 2011. Presentation Type: Poster Topic: sensory processing (please use "sensory processing" as keyword) Citation: Makin JG, Fellows MR and Sabes P (2011). Multisensory Integration via Density Estimation. Front. Comput. Neurosci. Conference Abstract: BC11 : Computational Neuroscience & Neurotechnology Bernstein Conference & Neurex Annual Meeting 2011. doi: 10.3389/conf.fncom.2011.53.00143 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 23 Aug 2011; Published Online: 04 Oct 2011. * Correspondence: Dr. Joseph G Makin, University of California at San Francisco, Department of Physiology and Keck Center for Integrative Neuroscience, San Francisco, United States, makin@phy.ucsf.edu Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Joseph G Makin Matthew R Fellows Philip Sabes Google Joseph G Makin Matthew R Fellows Philip Sabes Google Scholar Joseph G Makin Matthew R Fellows Philip Sabes PubMed Joseph G Makin Matthew R Fellows Philip Sabes Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.

Egoism and altruism are unequal contenders in the explanation of human behaviour. While egoism tends to be viewed as natural and unproblematic, altruism has always been treated with suspicion, and it has often been argued that apparent cases of altruistic behaviour might really just be some special form of egoism. The reason for this is that egoism fits into our usual theoretical views of human behaviour in a way that altruism does not. This is true on the biological level, where an evolutionary account seems to favour egoism, as well as on the psychological level, where an account of self-interested motivation is deeply rooted in folk psychology and in the economic model of human behaviour. While altruism has started to receive increasing support in both biological and psychological debates over the last decades, this paper focuses on yet another level, where egoism is still widely taken for granted.Philosophical egoism(Martin Hollis’ term) is the view that, on the ultimate level of intentional explanation, all action is motivated by one of the agent's desires. This view is supported by the standard notion that for a complex of behaviour to be an action, there has to be a way to account for that behaviour in terms of the agent's own pro-attitudes.Psychologicalaltruists, it is claimed, arephilosophicalegoists in that they are motivated by desires that have the other's benefit rather than the agent's own for its ultimate object (other-directed desires). This paper casts doubt on this thesis, arguing that empathetic agents act on other people's pro-attitudes in very much the same way as agents usually act on their own, and that while other-directed desires do play an important role in many cases of psychologically altruistic action, they are not necessary in explanations of some of the most basic and most pervasive types of human altruistic behaviour. The paper concludes with the claim that philosophical egoism is really a cultural value rather than a conceptual feature of action.