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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2013 Jan 5.
Published in final edited form as: Brain Res. 2011 May 30;1428C:3–12. doi: 10.1016/j.brainres.2011.05.053

Figure 1. Models of cognitive control and of decision making.

Figure 1

(A) In recent models of cognitive control, such as the cascade model shown here, control processes are organized according to their level of abstraction: from low-level control over actions to high-level control over broad plans for behavior. Information transfer is asymmetric, with processing of abstract information exerting a stronger influence (solid arrows) over more concrete processing than the reverse (dotted arrows). (B) Models of decision making, like that of Rangel and colleagues (2008) shown here, represent processes in terms of their functional, sequential contributions to choice. Potential actions are integrated with contextual/motivational information, assigned a value, and then compared in order to execute a decision/select action. Feedback about outcomes alters computations at each stage of processing.