The Experimental Manipulation of Uncertainty

Uncertainty is an important concept in neuroscience: due to its relevance in everyday life, because of theoretical significance for neurocomputational models, and clinical implications. A body of empirical research has tackled fundamental questions about how uncertainty is represented in the brain and what impact it has on behaviour. In this chapter, we review how uncertainty on different variables can be studied in isolation and how it can be quantified. Building on theoretical and empirical work that has been carried out so far, we propose rigorous experimental designs that should help in testing and understanding uncertainty and its translational relevance to adaptive behaviour and affective disorders.