Sciences comportementales | EPFL Graph Search

Le terme de sciences comportementales regroupe les disciplines qui explorent les activités et les interactions entre les organismes qui vivent dans la nature. Cela implique analyses systématiques et recherches sur le comportement animal et humain au moyen d'observations contrôlées et naturelles ainsi que des expérimentations scientifiques rigoureuses. Elles visent des conclusions légitimes à travers des formulations rigoureuses. Des exemples d'études comportementales se constituent à travers la psychologie, les sciences cognitives et l'anthropologie. Différences entre sciences sociales et sciences comportementales Le terme de « sciences comportementales » est souvent confondu avec celui de « sciences sociales ». Bien que ces deux champs soient interconnectés et procèdent tous les deux d'une étude systématique du comportement, ils diffèrent sur la profondeur de l'analyse scientifique de plusieurs dimensions du comportement. Les sciences du comportement théorisent des donn

A simulation and behavioral study of decision and risk in blackjack

The purpose of this master project was to explore decision making process applied to a blackjack game and make the links with facets of impulsivity. The first part of this study goes through the mathematical of this game and presented the optimal policy, computed with reinforcement learning algorithm. We also computed with a Monte Carlo simulation, for each possible hand and for each possible decision, the 3 values

{Q}_{t}

{H}_{t}

and

{h}_{t}

, value function, risk, one-step-ahead risk proposed by d'Acremont & Bossaerts, 2008. The second part of the study present the result of the behavioural study. Forty-seven undergraduate students perform 200 blackjack hands and completed a self-report questionnaire evaluating impulsivity and risk attitude. Our analysis reveals links with lack of perseverance and decision time. Furthermore percentage of optimal decision along the game reveals learning with novice player. The result of this study can be used as a basis for future research in neuroimaging on the risk, to try to answer if is possible to distinguish brain area associated with one-step ahead versus total risk

2009

Music Cognition: The Complexity of Musical Structure

Christoph Finkensiep, Mathieu Giraud, Daniel Harasim, Martin Alois Rohrmeier

Music is highly complex and provides a rich variety of insights into the human mind, its mental structures, and processes. Experienced musicians are able to create complex structures in real time effortlessly, yet there is at present no successful model of full musical structure. The integration of different musical aspects such as melody, rhythm, voice leading, and form as well as the representation of long-term structure are particularly challenging. To open new possibilities for the study of higher-order structure in music and its perceptual correlates, cognitive music research would benefit from further mutual integration of theoretical, mathematical, computational, and psychological research, similar to advancements in linguistics. This symposium therefore focuses on the formal understanding and empirical investigation of music-theoretically motivated research questions in music cognition. It connects perspectives from music theory, behavioral research, corpus research, and computational modeling, and aims to initiate interdisciplinary discussions about the currently most challenging topics related to the cognition of higher-order structures in music.

2021

Train the brain with music (TBM): brain plasticity and cognitive benefits induced by musical training in elderly people in Germany and Switzerland, a study protocol for an RCT comparing musical instrumental practice to sensitization to music

Dimitri Nestor Alice Van De Ville

Background: Recent data suggest that musical practice prevents age-related cognitive decline. But experimental evidence remains sparse and no concise information on the neurophysiological bases exists, although cognitive decline represents a major impediment to healthy aging. A challenge in the field of aging is developing training regimens that stimulate neuroplasticity and delay or reverse symptoms of cognitive and cerebral decline. To be successful, these regimens should be easily integrated in daily life and intrinsically motivating. This study combines for the first-time protocolled music practice in elderly with cutting-edge neuroimaging and behavioral approaches, comparing two types of musical education. Methods: We conduct a two-site Hannover-Geneva randomized intervention study in altogether 155 retired healthy elderly (64-78) years, (63 in Geneva, 92 in Hannover), offering either piano instruction (experimental group) or musical listening awareness (control group). Over 12 months all participants receive weekly training for 1 hour, and exercise at home for similar to 30 min daily. Both groups study different music styles. Participants are tested at 4 time points (0, 6, and 12 months & post-training (18 months)) on cognitive and perceptual-motor aptitudes as well as via wide-ranging functional and structural neuroimaging and blood sampling. Discussion: We aim to demonstrate positive transfer effects for faculties traditionally described to decline with age, particularly in the piano group: executive functions, working memory, processing speed, abstract thinking and fine motor skills. Benefits in both groups may show for verbal memory, hearing in noise and subjective well-being. In association with these behavioral benefits we anticipate functional and structural brain plasticity in temporal (medial and lateral), prefrontal and parietal areas and the basal ganglia. We intend exhibiting for the first time that musical activities can provoke important societal impacts by diminishing cognitive and perceptual-motor decline supported by functional and structural brain plasticity.

2020

A simulation and behavioral study of decision and risk in blackjack

{Q}_{t}

{H}_{t}

and

{h}_{t}

2009

Dimitri Nestor Alice Van De Ville

2020