Action Selection And Execution With Computational Neural Networks Of Neuromodulation And Sensory Integration

Action Selection and Execution with Computational Neural Networks of Neuromodulation and Sensory Integration

Neuromodulation is a neurophysiological process by which a single neuron can regulate the neural activity of a diverse population of neurons. Sensory integration is a neurobiological process by which the brain combines multiple sensory modality inputs (i.e., vision, proprioception, audition, tactile, olfactory, vestibular, interoception, and taste) into usable functional outputs. In biological systems, neuromodulation and sensory integration have been shown to have a strong influence over action selection (decision-making) and action execution (motor output) respectively. The experiments portrayed in Chapters 1-4 provide empirical and theoretical evidence for neuromodulatory influence over selected actions through predictions of expected costs and rewards. The simulation experiments described in Chapters 5-6 illustrate how sensory integration influences action execution across different neural architectures in visually and memory guided sensorimotor transformation tasks. The implications of these results and future endeavors are discussed in Chapter 7, along with a proposed computational model of both action selection and sensory integration to investigate the dynamics of decision-making influenced by the integration of multiple sensory inputs in order to execute an action.

The New Frontier of Network Physiology: From Temporal Dynamics to the Synchronization and Principles of Integration in Networks of Physiological Systems

Sensory Motor System: Modeling the Process of Action Execution

Abstract This paper presents a cognitive model—the Sensory Motor System (SMS)—for an action execution process, as a new module of the LIDA systems-level cognitive model. Action execution refers to a situation in which a software agent or robot executes a selected goal-directed action in the real world so as to output pertinent movement. Action execution requires transforming a selected goal-directed action into lower-level executable actions, and executing them. A sensorimotor system derived from the subsumption architecture has been implemented into the SMS; and several cognitive neuroscience hypotheses have been incorporated as well, including the two visual systems and others. A computational SMS has been created inside a LIDA-based software agent in Webots to model the execution of a grip action. The grip’s design is inspired by the arm controller of the robot Herbert and the current study of the human action execution. Simulated results are compared to human data. .