One hypothesis concerning the human dorsal anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) is that it functions, in part, to signal the occurrence of conflicts in information processing, thereby triggering compensatory adjustments in cognitive control. Since this idea was first proposed, a great deal of relevant empirical evidence has accrued. This evidence has largely corroborated the conflict-monitoring hypothesis, and some very recent work has provided striking new support for the theory. At the same time, other findings have posed specific challenges, especially concerning the (...) way the theory addresses the processing of errors. Recent research has also begun to shed light on the larger function of the ACC, suggesting some new possibilities concerning how conflict monitoring might fit into the cingulate's overall role in cognition and action. (shrink)

The aim of this book is to discuss the fundamental ideas which lie behind the statistical theory of learning and generalization. It considers learning as a general problem of function estimation based on empirical data. Omitting proofs and technical details, the author concentrates on discussing the main results of learning theory and their connections to fundamental problems in statistics. This second edition contains three new chapters devoted to further development of the learning theory and SVM techniques. Written in a readable (...) and concise style, the book is intended for statisticians, mathematicians, physicists, and computer scientists. (shrink)