Interdisciplinary studies of decision-making and motor planning

大多数心理学理论旨在理解人类认知的高级方面。例如，对决策的研究通常涉及我们如何做出抽象的选择，如选择职业或购买房屋。这些理论通常认为，决策是在认知系统内做出的，然后才被传递到运动系统，以执行所需的动作-一个感知，思考，然后行动的串行架构。然而，人类大脑是漫长进化历史的产物，在这段历史的大部分时间里，动物面临的挑战与抽象决策任务截然不同。特别是，动物生活中的大多数决定都是在实时、动态变化的环境中做出的，没有时间进行仔细的考虑，然后进行行动规划。我曾提出，为了在这种动态情境中做出有效的行为，大脑使用了一种并行架构，在这种架构中，可以同时指定多个潜在的行动，根据当前的感官信息选择一个，甚至在执行过程中，如果情况突然发生变化，其他选项也会被考虑在内。这就是所谓的“示能竞争假说”。

Most psychological theories are aimed at understanding advanced aspects of human cognition. For example, studies of decision-making usually address how we make abstract choices such as selecting a career or buying a house. These often lead to theories suggesting that decisions are made within a cognitive system prior to being transmitted to the motor systems for executing the required movements – a serial architecture of sensing, thinking, and then acting. However, the human brain is the product of a long history of evolution, and during most of that history, animals were faced with challenges very different from those of abstract decision tasks. In particular, most decisions in animal life are made in a real-time, dynamically changing environment that does not allow time for careful deliberation followed by action planning. I have proposed that for effective behavior in such dynamic situations, the brain uses a parallel architecture in which multiple potential actions can be specified simultaneously, one selected on the basis of current sensory information, and even during its execution other options remain under consideration in case circumstances suddenly change. This is called the “affordance competition hypothesis”.