It's all how you look at it: Construal is reflected in brain and behavior

Dr. Peter Balsam is a professor of Psychology at Columbia University.  

Individuals construe situations differently. The same individual can construe a given situation in different ways at different times. Our formal theories typically assume that there is one "true" way in which experiences are construed. In the case of associative learning theories it is assumed that animals construe the world as a series of discrete events (e.g. A conditioned stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus). Other theories assume that the temporal structure of experience guides behavior(e.g. Choice is base on rates of reward). Research from our lab suggests that our subjects do not always construe the world in the same way as experimenters and theorists. Additionally, construal is flexible and dependent on experience. We argue that striatal dopamine  rapidly reflects the way in which experiences are construed and that these changes in the brain happen long before any behavioral changes take place. The next big challenge will be to understand how the neural representation of knowledge gets translated into motivation and action.

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Hosted by Dr. Michael Drew

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