Conceptual representations in goal-directed decision making
Cogn Affect Behav Neurosci 2008 8:418-428
Philippe N. Tobler
Emerging evidence suggests that the long-established distinction
between habit-based and goal-directed decision-making mechanisms can
also be sustained in humans. Although the habit-based system has been
extensively studied in humans, the goal-directed system is less well
characterized. This review brings to that task the distinction between
conceptual and nonconceptual representational mechanisms. Conceptual
representations are structured out of semantic constituents
(concepts)—the use of which requires an ability to perform some
language-like syntactic processing. Decision making—as investigated by
neuroscience and psychology—is normally studied in isolation from
questions about concepts as studied in philosophy and cognitive
psychology. We ask what role concepts play in the “goal-directed”
decision-making system. We argue that one fruitful way of studying this
system in humans is to investigate the extent to which it deploys
conceptual representations.
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