American Economic Review Vol. 104 No. 5 2014

Rational Attention and Adaptive Coding: A Puzzle and a Solution

Camillo Padoa-Schioppa¹; Aldo Rustichini²

¹ Department of Anatomy and Neurobiology, Washington University in St. Louis, 660 South Euclid Avenue, St. Louis, MO 63110 (e-mail: ) · ² Department of Economics, University of Minnesota, 1925 4th Street South 4-101, Hanson Hall, Minneapolis, MN 55455-0462 (e-mail: )

Abstract

Adaptive Coding is the property of the brain to adjust its response to statistical properties of the environment. Its effect is an improved discrimination among signals under the constraints on the dynamic range of its response. It can thus be considered the neural correspondent of Rational Attention, which models how a rational decisionmaker allocates attention among different informative signals. There is strong evidence of existence of widespread adaptive coding. Adaptive coding introduces a dependence of choice from the environment which is not observed in behavior. We discuss potential solutions and propose Hebbian learning as a potentially satisfactory answer.

DOI

10.1257/aer.104.5.507

Volume

104

Issue

5

Pages

507-513

Language

en

Sources

bibtex:phds-export.bib crossref openalex

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