Bayes optimality of human perception, action and learning: behavioural and neural evidence

The primary role of any biological nervous system (including the human) is to process incoming information in a way that allows motor choices to be made that increases the subjective utility of the organism. Or put slightly differently, “to make sure good things happen”. There are a number of ways that such a process can be done, but one possible hypothesis is that the human nervous system has been optimized to maximize the use of available resources, thus approximating optimal computations. In the following I will discuss the possibility of the nervous system performing such computations in perception, action and learning, and the behavioural and neural evidence supporting such ideas.