V05 Exploration and Expliotation (Ambidexterity)in individuals

"Cognitive control capabilities" (def. from lecture)
The ability to change learning strategies and focus attention on selected aspects of the environment.

• Thinking abstractly and drawing analogies
• Sustained attention
• Working memory
  • selecting sensory informationd and storing (only) relevant information
• Planing and generativity
  • planning future actions
• Reflective capacity
  • initiating appropriate actions
  • inhibiting inappropriate and impulsive behaviors

• Attention is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought.
• Focalization and concentration of consciousness are essencial.
• It implies withdrawal from some things in order to deal effectively with others.

Bottom Up Attention:
Referring to attentional guidance purely by externally driven factors to stimuli that are salient because of their inherent properties relative to the background.

Example: Video with Skoda-Car or Fly on lecture slide.

Top Down Attention:
Referring to internal guidance of attention based on prior knowledge, willful plans, and current goals.

Attention control: Switching between those two types of attention in a proper way.

• Exploitation: Brain region involved which is reward-related 
• Exploration: Brain regions involved with the assesment of reward-related uncertainty and cognitive and attentional control
• Desicion-making performance (swiching between exploration and exploitation): Brain regions involved which is responsible for attentional control

Both buttom-up and top-down learning are involved in explorative and exploitative desicions.

1. No significant difference 

2. No significant difference

3. Generalists decision-making performance is better because they are able to switch from exploration and expliotation at different moments. They show stronger ativations in regions related to attention control, planning, idea generation, behavioral switching.