Problem 2 - Brains and Computers

Approaches to Cognitive Science

By P. Thagard
Chapter 1
● Cognitive science proposes that people have mental procedures that operate on
mental representations to produce thought and action
● Different kinds of mental representations such as rules and concepts foster different
kinds of mental procedures
● George Miller, John McCarthy, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, Herbert Simon and
Noam Chomsky can be viewed as the founders of cognitive science
● The central hypothesis for cognitive science states that thinking can best be
understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational
procedures that operate on those structures
● A cognitive theory postulates a set of representational structures and a set of
processes that operate on these structures
● A computational model makes these structures and processes more precise by
interpreting them by analogy with computer programs that consist of data structures
and algorithms
● In order to test the model, it must be implemented in a software program in a
programming language such as Java
● The running program can contribute to evaluation of the model and theory in three
ways:
○ it helps to show that the postulated representations a processes are
computationally realizable
○ in order to show not only the computational realizability of a theory but also its
psychological plausibility, the program can be applied qualitatively to various
examples of thinking
○ to show a much more detailed fit between the theory and human thinking, the
program can be used qualitatively to generate detailed predictions about
human thinking that can be compared with the results of psychological
experiments
● Currently there are six main approaches to modeling the mind, involving logic, rules,
concepts, analogies, images and neural connections
● The box beneath lists five criteria for evaluating a particular account of these
representations and computations that can be claimed to explain thought:
1. Representational power
2. Computational power (problem solving, decision, explanation, learning,
language)
3. Psychological Plausibility
4. Neurological Plausibility
5. Practical Applicability (education, design, intelligent systems, mental illness)
● The general question is: Why do people have a particular kind of intelligent behavior?
● The exploratory pattern is:
○ people have mental representations
 ○ people have algorithmic processes that operate on those representations
○ the processes, applied to the representations, produce the behavior
Conclusion:​ The interdisciplinary study of mind (cognitive science) has a core, which is the
computational-representational understanding of mind (CRUM). Thinking is the result of
mental representations and computational processes that operate on those representations.
CRUM is multifarious and it is successful, but still incomplete, because not all aspects of
human thought and intelligence can be accounted for in purely
computational-representational terms

Chapter 7
● Connectionist Models can simulate learning b methods that include Hebbian learning
and backpropagation
● The main question is why do people have a particular kind of intelligent behavior?
● The exploratory pattern to this question int at people have representations that
involve simple processing units linked to each other by excitatory and inhibitory
connections
● People have processes that spread activation between the units via their
connections, as well as processes for modifying the connections
● Applying this spreading activation and learning to the units produces then the
behavior
● There are two classes of models from the connectionist view, which are the local
representations in which neuron like structures are given an identifiable interpretation
in terms of specifiable concepts or propositions, and there are the distributed
representations in networks that learn how to represent concepts or propositions in
more complex ways that distribute meaning over complexes of neuron like structures
● Both local and distributed representations can be used to perform parallel constraint
satisfaction
● Connectionist networks constitute very simple representations, since they consist
only of units and links
● The units are analogous to neurons and have a degree of activation that corresponds
roughly to the frequency with which neurons fire in order to send signals to other
neurons
● In local connectionist networks, the units have a specifiable interpretation such as
particular concepts or propositions
● The activation of a unit can be interpreted as a judgment about the applicability of a
concept or the truth of a proposition
● The neural network computes by spreading activation between units that are linked
to each other
● A unit with an excitatory link to an active unit will gain activation fro it, whereas a unit
with an inhibitory link to an active unit will have its own activation decreased
A Real-Time fMRI-Based Spelling Device Immediately Enabling
Robust Motor-Independent Communication
By M. Sorger

● The first spelling device based on fMRI is introduced in this study and by exploiting
spatiotemporal characteristics of hemodynamic responses, evoked by performing
differently timed mental imagery tasks, the novel letter encoding technique allowed
translating any freely chosen answers into reliable and differentiable single-trait fMRI
signals
● Automated letter encoding in real time enabled back-and-forth communication within
a single scanning session
● By employing a novel, robust, and immediately applicable letter encoding technique
and advanced real-time fMRI decoding method, the scientists enables all participants
of the proof-of-concept study to monor.independently communicate any given
thought within a 1 hr MRI session
● In each communication experiment, a mini-conversation consisting of two open
questions
● The participants were trained in computing 27 different letters with the help of three
BOLD signal aspect, which were location of the signal source by performing three
different mental tasks, signal onset delay by delaying the start of the mental task for
0, 10 or 20 s, and signal duration by varying the mental task duration between 10, 20
and 30s
● The automated letter decoder ranked all 27 characters according to their overall fit
with a combined letter decoding criterion (incorporating both shape and amplitude
pattern information)
● The results showed that averaged across participants, the top-ranked letter choice
was correct in 82% of the cases
● This real-time fMRI study shows that by using easy-to-perform mental imagery tasks
and an appropriate experimental design, one can hemodynamically encode a
remarkable amount of distinct information units on a single trial basis, in a reasonable
timeframe, and with little effort, pretraining, and preparation
● This technique can be profitable for patients in a state of Locked-in Syndrome (LIS),
who are still conscious but have difficulty communicating with their environment

Brain-Computer Interfaces for Communication and Rehabilitation

By U. Chaudhary

● At the beginning of the 21st century, progress in Brain Computer Interface research
was rapid
● This progress has been driven y an increase in the number of available techniques to
record different brain signals
● BCIs can be classified to record different brain signals and they can be classified as
invasive or noninvasive
● The general principles of all BCIs are similar: the brain signals that are detected are
amplified, filtered and decoded using online classification algorithms
 ● After processing and decoding of the brain signals, the output of the BCI can be used
to control movement of a prosthesis, orthosis, wheelchair, robot or cursor, or to direct
electrical stimulation of muscles or the brain
● BCIs can be classified as assistive or rehabilitative according to their clinical
application
● Assistive BCI systems aim to substitute lost functions, such as communication or
motor function, enable control of robotic devices, or provide functional electrical
stimulation to assist with daily life
● By contrast, rehabilitative BCI systems aim to facilitate the restoration of brain
function and/or behavior by manipulation or self-regulation of neurophysiological
activity
● Today, the application of BCIs for communication in paralysis has largely focused on
patients with ALS, which is a progressive motor neuron disease that leads to
complete destruction of the peripheral and central motor system but affects sensory
and cognitive functions to a relatively minor degree
● Patients with complete paralysis except for vertical eye movement and blinking but
preserved consciousness are classified as having locked-in syndrome
● Those people, unable to speak, consequently benefit from systems that enable them
to communicate, like BCIs
● In the first successful use of noninvasive BCIs for communication in locked-in
syndrome, patients were able to communicate by controlling slow cortical potentials
to select letters on a computer screen
● BCIs can also be used for people with paralysis or movement loss and most of them
have been developed for stroke rehabilitation in order to manipulate the brain
reorganization that is thought to occur after a stroke
● The present view of brain reorganization in chronic stroke is that overuse of the
healthy contralesional hemisphere and underuse of the ipsilesional hemisphere leads
to increased inhibition of the ipsilesional hemisphere by the contralesional
hemisphere
● This inhibition is thought to block excitatory reorganization of the intact ipsilesional
areas and block recovery of the affected motor system
● In summary, over the very short period of two decades, clinical research into BCIs
has provided us with extremely promising strategies to improve the prospects for
patients with otherwise debilitating neurological disorder that are currently difficult or
impossible to treat

Cognitive Psychology - A Methods Companion (Chapter about

Connectionism)
By M. LeVoi

● Computational models of the brain began with models based on the rule-based
approach, exemplified by ACT-R
● Some psychologists wanted to develop models that bore a closer resemblance to the
neural architecture of the brain so they developed neural network models based on
connectionism
● When building a connectionist model, it is automatically capable of generalizations
● There are other remarkable properties that are inherent in connectionist models,
such as content-addressable memory
● All these characteristics are known to be natural properties of human cognition
● Graceful Degradation, the fact that thousands of neurons die everyday without
harming us, is one of the hallmarks of distributed rather than local, representation
● Local representations are for example so called ´grandma-cells`, which are in this
case cells that fire only in response to seeing your grandma (specific tuned neurons)
● Local representation in neural models, such as described above, has generally been
rejected as implausible
● In contrast, an example of distributed representations are watch faces or digital
clocks, because individual numbers are represented in such a display by activity
across the seven segments that make it up and every unit is involved in the
representation of each number, either by being on or off
● Depending on activity in other segments, each one may form part of an edge, and
angle, or a closed loop, therefore representation of each number is distributed over
all seven segments: no single unit uniquely represents one of the numerals
● One advantage of the distributed representations is, like in the example of the digits,
that it has the capability to continue correct operations despite loss of parts of the
information, which results from the fact that the original representation encoded more
information than was required to maintain the representation (known as Redundancy)
● When very large numbers of units are involved, such as might be the case for
neurons in the brain, distributed representations are highly robust to damage, which
is just as well considering thousands of brain cells die every day in the adult human
● Distributed models are therefore generally redundant encoding and information is not
confined to particular locations, a good performance is still possible when the
netweork receives incomplete information
● People can use the similarity between multiple stimuli to generalize from those
instances to form an organizing concept, which is a very important aspect of human
cognition
● The pattern associator, a simple two-layer connectionist model, is well suited to doing
pattern matching and generating associations in parallel between different input and
output patterns and it is capable of spontaneous generalization
● The auto associator also performs pattern matching and storage, and is appropriate
where there is no obvious definition of the input and output parts of the pattern: any
part of a stored pattern may be used as a cue for retrieval of the rest
● Retrieval of the whole pattern from a fragment of its content is known as content
addressability
● Connectionists networks can learn from input patterns presented to them by a
process of gradual modification of connection weights, which are changed in the
direction that reduces the error between the network´s calculated output and the
pre-defined output, which is called learning by error reduction
● The learning process proceeds using purely local information for each connection
weight: calculation of the change in weight for one connection does not need
information about the error anywhere else in the network
 ● Large networks can learn several different patterns simultaneously, storing
information about each pattern in one set of weights: the information is distributed
over all the connection weights

High-Performance Neuroprosthetic Control by an Individual with

Tetraplegia
By J. L. Collinger

Background
● The background of the study is that we use our arms to transport and orient the hand
which is used to grasp and manipulate objects and upper limb paralysis or
amputation limits a person's ability to do so
● Brain machine interfaces (BMIs) may provide a solution to restoring much of this
function
Methods
● A 52-year old woman who was diagnosed with spinocerebellar degeneration 13
years prior to participation was implanted with two 96-channel intracortical
microelectrodes in the motor cortex
● Thirteen weeks of BMI training were conducted with the goal of controlling an
anthropomorphic prosthetic limb with 7 degrees-of-freedom
Results
● The participant demonstrated the ability to move the device freely in the
three-dimensional workspace on the second day of training
● After 13 weeks, robust 7-degree-of-freedom movements were performed routinely
● Over time, performance on target-based reaching tasks improved in terms of success
rate, completion time, and path efficiency
● The participant was able to use the prosthetic limb to perform skillful and coordinated
reach and grasp movements that resulted in clinically significant gains in tests of
upper limb function
Discussion
● These findings demonstrate that a person with tetraplegia can perform consistent,
natural, and complex movements with an anthropomorphic robotic arm to regain
clinically significant function
● Although the mechanism of this modification of the correspondence between neural
activity and action is unknown, the clear and consistent change in neral tuning is a
hallmark for the BMI paradigm