Behavioral Social Neuroscience Seminar
Humans are remarkable in their ability to execute some complex behaviors automatically. This ability however, requires thousands of trials of practice and is associated with some fundamental changes in how the behavior is mediated within the brain. Much evidence suggests that the initial learning of many skilled behaviors depends critically on subcortical structures within the basal ganglia. Ashby, Ennis, and Spiering (2007, Psychological Review) proposed that the development of automaticity is a gradual process via which control is passed from these subcortical systems to purely cortical networks that connect sensory association areas of cortex with premotor cortex. Thus, rather than to serve as a long-term store of skilled behavior, a primary function of the basal ganglia may be to train cortical-cortical representations that mediate automaticity. This theory is formalized in a neurobiologically detailed neural network model and tested against single-unit recording data, data from cognitive behavioral experiments, and functional neuroimaging data.