Reward-related cues are an important part of our daily life as they often influence and guide
our actions. This paper reviews one of the experimental paradigms used to study the effects …

Evidence supports at least two methods for learning about reward and punishment and
making predictions for guiding actions. One method, called model-free, progressively …

We propose a Survival Optimization System (SOS) to account for the strategies that humans
and other animals use to defend against recurring and novel threats. The SOS attempts to …

Despite many debates in the first half of the twentieth century, it is now largely a truism that
humans and other animals build models of their environments and use them for prediction …

Adaptive reward-related decision making requires accurate prospective consideration of the
specific outcome of each option and its current desirability. These mental simulations are …

The multiple-memory-systems framework—that distinct types of memory are supported by
distinct brain systems—has guided learning and memory research for decades. However …

Animal research has shown it is possible to want a reward that is not liked once obtained.
Although these findings have elicited interest, human experiments have produced …

Background Goal-directed actions depend on our capacity to integrate the anticipated
consequences of an action with the value of those consequences, with the latter derived …

Why do we indulge in food-seeking and eating behaviors at times when we are already fully
sated? In the present study we investigated the hypothesis that food-associated cues in the …

In detoxified alcohol‐dependent patients, alcohol‐related stimuli can promote relapse.
However, to date, the mechanisms by which contextual stimuli promote relapse have not …