title: Dialogue on economic choice, learning theory, and neuronal representations.
abstract: In recent years, two distinct lines of work have focused on the substrates of associative learning and on the mechanisms of economic decisions. While experiments often focused the same brain regions - most notably the orbitofrontal cortex - the two literatures have remained largely distinct. Here we engage in a dialogue with the intent to clarify the relationship between the two frameworks. We identify a potential correspondence between the concept ofoutcomedefined in learning theory and that ofgooddefined in neuroeconomics, and we specifically discuss the concept ofvaluedefined in the two frameworks. While many differences remain unresolved, a common idea is that good/outcome values are subjective, devaluation-sensitive and computed on the fly, not "cached" or pre-computed.
authors.affiliation: Departments of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Economics and Biomedical Engineering, Washington University, St. Louis, MO 63110.
authors.forename: Camillo
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Padoa-Schioppa
authors.affiliation: Intramural Research Program, NIDA, 251 Bayview Drive, Baltimore, MD 21224.
authors.forename: Geoffrey
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Schoenbaum