CMBC LECTURE | Robert Wilson "The Role of Information and Randomization in Exploration and Exploitation"
"The Role of Information and Randomization in Exploration and Exploitation"
Many decisions involve a trade-off between exploring unknown options for information and exploiting known options for a more certain payoff. In this talk I will present evidence that people use two strategies to solve these explore-exploit dilemmas: directed exploration, driven by information, and random exploitation, driven by noise. These two strategies appear to rely on dissociable cognitive and neural processes, but I will show that they can arise from a single model based on mental simulation. This model accounts for the effects of uncertainty, time horizon, and the informativeness of feedback on directed and random exploitation as well as more recent findings suggesting that random exploitation is truly random. I will end with a discussion of our future work where we aim to study explore-exploit decisions in the real world.
University Event Topic: Lectures & Meetings. School: Emory College. Department / Organization: Center for Mind Brain and Culture. Series: CMBC Lectures. Building/Room: White Hall. Speaker/Presenter: Robert "Bob" Wilson
Associate Professor, School of Psychology | College of Sciences | Georgia Institute of Technology. Event Open To: Emory Community. Cost: Free.
Tuesday, November 10, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
White Hall 112.
CMBC BOOK LAUNCH | Antonis Iliopoulos "Early Body Ornaments and the Origins of Our Semiotic Mind"
Early Body Ornaments and the Origins of Our Semiotic Mind
What can the origins of self-adornment tell us about the evolution of the human mind? Were humans making ornaments more than 70,000 years ago in order to express ideas and ideals that they already had, or was ornament-making a process that drove the evolution of symbolic concepts and aesthetic values in the first place? Instead of seeing artifacts as the epiphenomenal products of processes that take place strictly within the braincase, Iliopoulos argues that objects can play an active role in shaping human cognition and that they provide the scaffolding on which a mind like ours could evolve. In making this proposal, his book draws inspiration from various disciplines including archaeology, anthropology, philosophy, and semiotics. The framework that results from his interdisciplinary approach allows him to address both the nature and the emergence of our unique capacity to use material signs. Early body ornaments thus become a test case for how things…
University Event Topic: Lectures & Meetings. School: Emory College. Oxford College. Department / Organization: Center for Mind Brain and Culture. Series: CMBC Events. Building/Room: Psychology Building. Speaker/Presenter: Antonis Iliopoulos
Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Philosophy | Oxford College of Emory University
Panel Discussants:
Sandy Blakely, Classics | Emory University
Dietric Stout, Anthropology | Emory University
John Stuhr, Philosophy | Emory University. Event Open To: Emory Community. Cost: Free.
Thursday, November 12, 2026, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM.
CMBC LUNCH | Ivana Prica "DIY Yugoslavia: Student Activism, Cultural Memory, and the Path to a New Serbia"
"DIY Yugoslavia: Student Activism, Cultural Memory, and the Path to a New Serbia"
This lecture explores the continuity of student activism and artistic resistance in Serbia, tracing connections between Yugoslav cultural heritage, student mobilizations of the 1990s, and contemporary struggles. The talk considers student DIY culture, grounded in the Student Cultural Center (SKC) in Belgrade, established in the aftermath of the 1968 protests, as a practice of artistic autonomy and direct political agency. Particular attention will be given to the 2025 student movement and its reclamation of the SKC as a space for collective creation, direct democracy, plenums, and uncensored artistic production, which culminated in the recent electoral ouster of longtime authoritarian ruler Aleksandar Vučić. Through this act of “liberation,” I will suggest that Serbian students reactivated cultural memory as a resource for collective resistance and imagining a new society.
Dr. Prica’s research explores the institutionalization…
University Event Topic: Lectures & Meetings. School: Emory College. Department / Organization: Center for Mind Brain and Culture. Series: CMBC Lectures. Building/Room: Psychology Building. Speaker/Presenter: Ivana Prica
Assistant Professor, Faculty of Music
University of Arts in Belgrade, Serbia
REGISTRATION REQUIRED :: SEE FORM BELOW. Event Open To: Emory Community. Cost: Free. Registration / R.S.V.P. link: https://forms.gle/93b6WS4VP8bxDMuR6.
Wednesday, November 18, 2026, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM.
PAIS 464.