生活意味着一次接一次的決策，而決策的難點是權衡一個行為可能帶來的獎勵和可能包含的不确定性。我從決策的角度研究人的知覺、運動和認知系統中的各種問題。我關注的問題是：人腦在決策中如何表征和計算不确定性？ 我将結合行為實驗、計算建模和腦成像技術，從行為、表征與算法、神經基礎這三個層面給出答案。
代表性科研論文：
Zhang H, Daw ND, Maloney LT. Testing Whether Humans Have an Accurate Model of Their Own Motor Uncertainty in a Speeded Reaching Task. 2013, PLoS Computational Biology, 9(5).
Zhang H, Morvan C, Etezad-Heydari L-A, Maloney LT. Very slow search and reach: Failure to maximize expected gain in an eye-hand coordination task. 2012, PLoS Computational Biology, 8(10).
Zhang H, Maloney LT. Ubiquitous log odds: a common representation of probability and frequency distortion in perception, action, and cognition. 2012, Frontiers in Neuroscience, 6(1).
Zhang H, Morvan C, Maloney LT. Gambling in the visual periphery: A conjoint-measurement analysis of human ability to judge visual uncertainty. 2010, PLoS Computational Biology, 6(12).
Maloney LT, Zhang H. Decision-theoretic models of visual perception and action. 2010, Vision Research, 50(23).
2015年6月29日，北京大學麥戈文腦研究所、生命中心和北京大學心理學系張航研究員與美國紐約大學的合作者Nathaniel D. Daw和Laurence T. Maloney在《Nature Neuroscience》雜志在線發表題為“Human representation of visuo-motor uncertainty as mixtures of orthogonal basis distributions”的研究論文 (DOI: 10.1038/nn.4055)。文章首次提出并證實了，人腦對運動不确定性的内在表征是基于少量正交基底函數的簡化和近似。
