1. Electrophysiology of abstract rule learning in 5 month-old infants

ions from biomechanical models, to neurobiological implementations (e.g. Robinson, 1986) or Bayesian models. This study is both novel and important because – using a neurobiologically plausible hierarchical Bayesian model – it demonstrates that using generalized coordinates to finesse the prediction of a target's motion, the model can reproduce characteristic properties of tracking eye movements in the presence of delays. Crucially, the different refinements to the model that we propose – pursuit initiation, smooth pursuit eye movements, and anticipatory response – are consistent with the different types of tracking eye movements that may be observed experimentally. 15. Rules and Goals: Neural mechanisms of cognitive control in human prefrontal cortex Sandrine Duverne and Etienne Koechlin Ecole Normale Supérieure and INSERM The human prefrontal cortex (PFC) subserves cognitive control, i.e. the ability to select behavioral strategies in relation to current mental states. Cognitive control is usually postulated as being goal-directed: strategy selection follows current expectations about action outcomes based on external cues. However, recent computational proposals challenge this goal-centered view and instead describe cognitive control as inferring from both external cues and action outcomes which strategy applies to the current situation. This inferencecentered view has yet to be empirically investigated. Using neuroimaging, we show here that the medial PFC encodes and conveys to lateral PFC reward expectations driving strategy selection in lateral PFC. Critically, however, strategy selection in lateral PFC could comply with external cues in contradiction to current reward expectations that medial PFC encoded and conveyed to lateral PFC. This functional coupling between medial and lateral PFC reflects inference-driven rather than goal-directed processes in the service of cognitive control. Workshop Probabilistic Inference and the Brain, Sept. 10-11th 2015, Collège de France, Paris