Stochastic Diffusion Processes:

communication, search and

cognition
“Nothing seems more possible to me than that people someday will come to the definite opinion that there is no
copy in the ... nervous system which corresponds to a particular thought, or a particular idea, or memory.”
Ludwig Wittgenstein, 1948:
Last
Last writings on the
the Philosophy of Psychology,
Psychology, Volume 1.

Mark Bishop
Goldsmiths, University of London
 Background
• The talk is a synthesis of recent papers by Bishop (2009)
and Nasuto, Bishop & de Meyer (2009):
• Bishop, J.M., (2009),
A Cognitive Computing fallacy? Cognition, computations and panpsychism,
Cognitive Computing 1:3, pp. 221-233.

• Nasuto, S.J., Bishop, J.M. & De Meyer (2009),

Communicating neurons: a connectionist spiking neuron implementation of stoch
astic diffusion search
, Neurocomputing 72, pp. 704-712.

• Acknowledgements:
• A number of RAs, graduate/project students worked with me to establish the
foundations of SDP; in this talk in particular I draw on results from: Paul Beattie,
Darren Myatt, Mohammad Majid, Daniel Jones, Tom Morey, Matt Warriner &
Nicoletta Nicolaou.
 Computations as cognition
• In this talk I claim a ubiquitous computational metaphor lies at the heart of
cognitive science in [at least] three modes:

• (1) Explicitly: cognition is ‘computations on symbols’

• GOFAI (‘[physical] symbol systems’); functionalism (philosophy of
mind); cognitivism (psychology); language of thought (philosophy;
linguistics)

• (2) Implicitly: cognition as ‘computations on sub-symbols’

• Connectionism (sub-symbolic AI; psychology; linguistics); the digital
connectionist theory of mind (philosophy of mind).

• (3) Descriptively: cognitive modelling via computational simulations

• Hodgkin–Huxley mathematical models of neuron action potentials
(computational neuroscience; psychology).
 Overview
a) For each of the three identified modes of cognitive science I will highlight one or
more well known critiques that motivate a change from the hegemony of the
computational cognitive metaphor.

b) I will subsequently suggest a new cognitive metaphor; one grounded on ‘interactions

and communication’.

c) And I will conclude by outlining NESTER - a novel connectionist architecture

based on Stochastic Diffusion Processes - that may escape [at least some of the]
classical critiques of computational cognition.

a) NB. This is not to suggest that we throw the baby (computational modelling)
out with the bath water (the generic computational metaphor).

b) Simply that a new metaphor of communication may shed a new and useful light
on areas of cognitive science hitherto obfuscated by the fog of mere
computations.
 1. Symbolic cognition
• Cognition involves discrete, internal mental states (representations or symbols) whose
manipulation can be described in terms of rules or algorithms:

• Good old-fashioned cognitive psychology; computations on representations:

• Cognitive states are computational relations to computational mental
representations that have content.

• Cognitive process - changes in cognitive states - are computational

operations on computational mental representations that have content.

• Good old-fashioned AI; computation on symbols:

• Newell & Simon’s Physical Symbol System (PSS) hypothesis: “Any
intelligent machine is at its core a PSS ... a PSS has the necessary and
sufficient means for general intelligent action”.
 Some critiques of symbolic
cognition
• Godelian:
• Lucas - with [theoretical] knowledge of the Godel formula of any mathematical system, a
human is always greater than any given computational system.

• Penrose - computations cannot capture all of human [mathematical] understanding.

• Searlian:
• The Chinese room argument - syntax is not sufficient for semantics.
• Computation as an ‘observer relative’ phenomena:
• Searle - “For any program there is some sufficiently complex object such that there is
some description of the object under which it is implementing the program”; e.g. Searle’s
wall as an instantiation of the ‘Wordstar’ program.

• Putnam - a rock implements every input-less FSA.

• Bishop - a non-repeating digital counter (or, pace Putnam, any ‘open physical system’
such as a rock) implements any program with known-input over a finite time period.
 2. Sub-symbolic cognition

• In connectionist systems networks of learnt (tuned) feature detectors cause

functionally specified cognitive effects; knowledge defined as vectors in Rn.

• A Learning Algorithm (e.g. back propagation) maps a spatial trajectory of

network parameters in a Euclidean space, Rn.

• Over time network parameters learn/evolve to perform desired mappings

over pairs of real valued input/output vectors.

• Strengths of classical connectionism include:

• Its application to many engineering problems requiring flexible A.I.

• Its use as a metaphor for both high level and low level cognitive processes.
 Critiques of sub-symbolic cognition
(a) Van de Velde: type / token knowledge

• Standard connectionist models most

naturally represent knowledge as
‘types’ or ‘classes’, (book, computer,
chair etc).

• A restriction Van de Velde recognised

as, “... a fundamental cause of many
problems when modelling symbolic
processes by connectionist networks.”
 Critiques of sub-symbolic cognition
(b) Dinsmore: only arity zero predicates

• Conventional connectionist networks

can represent knowledge as tokens,
however such tokens are always
materially and spatially defined as
neuronal activations in the network.
• Either each node represents a
specific feature or knowledge is
distributed across activations of
groups of nodes.
• Dinsmore suggests this form of
representation is limited to ‘arity-zero
predicates’ and that this is too strong a
restriction to model general, real-
world knowledge.
 Critiques of sub-symbolic cognition
(c) Abbott: implausible use of inhibition

• e.g. In many ANNs lateral inhibition has been

extensively used to:

• ... perform ‘winner take all’ (Grossberg);

• … normalise signals and/or prevent

saturation (Douglas);

• … define topological structure (Kohonen).

• However Abbott suggests there is a “lack of

evidence for widespread inhibitory neuronal
mechanisms in the cortex”.
 3) Computational modelling
• All matter - from the simplest particles to the most complex living organisms -
undergoes physical processes which are not usually given any special
computational interpretations.

• For example, although we can describe the operation of a spring, as it extends

under moderate force, by Hook’s law; we don’t say that the spring computes,
according to Hook’s law, how much it should deform.

• However, when it comes to nervous systems the situation changes abruptly.

• Since the publication of the Hodgkin-Huxley equations in 1952 single neuron
behaviour has been extensively modelled computationally;

• Subsequently in neuroscience it has been assumed that neurons possess special

computational capabilities (e.g. this neuron computes x; where x may be gradients,
edges, motion etc) which are not attributed to other, more complex, biological
substances (e.g. DNA).
3) Critiques [of the hegemony]
of computational modelling (i)
• The assumption of ‘computational capabilities’ to
individual neurons is an anthropomorphic
viewpoint, because computation is an intentional
notion and assumes existence of some ‘demon’
that is able to interpret it.

• Thus, the very assumption of

‘computational capabilities’ of real neurons
leads to a homuncular theory of mind.
 3) Critiques of computational
modelling (ii)
• Discoveries in neuroscience since the development of the Hodgkin-Huxley model
reveal complex neuronal behaviour and suggest that the mathematical
characterisation of single neurons via non-linear ordinary differential equations
does not capture the information processing complexity of real neurons:

• In particular it has been hypothesised (e.g. by Koch and Barlow and Granger
amongst others) that a neuron can select input contingent on its spatial location on
the dendritic tree or its temporal structure.

• Furthermore, there is strong evidence that real neurons operate on richer

information than provided by a single real number (mean firing rate) and therefore
that the full gamut of their operation cannot be adequately described in a standard
Euclidean setting.

• Instead of modelling the neuron as a logical or numerical function, perhaps it

could be better described by an alternative metaphor?
 An alternative metaphor:
communication and interaction
• Communication as process; two definitions from the
dictionary:

• “relating to the imparting or transmission of something”,

(OED).

• “something imparted, interchanged, or transmitted”,

(Dictionary.com).

• In this sense communication is a process of interaction that

occurs between agent and umwelt;

• Umwelt being the outer world, environment or reality, as

it affects the agent; as such it may contain other agents.

• Thus, contra computation, communication as process is:

• an observer independent, objective property of agent-
environment systems;

• a potentially more powerful metaphor than algorithms.

 Swarm Intelligence (SI)

• In the last two decades there has been a shift in research in A.I. that
seeks to move research away from the classical modes of either
equating intelligence with mere symbol manipulations or simple
connectionist systems ...

• ... Moving away from the view that mind is merely equivalent to
brain – a private internal process – hence de-emphasising the
autonomy of the individual thinker and instead emphasising the
collective nature of many intelligent processes.

• Swarm Intelligence emphasises the social nature of some cognitive

processes and draws inspiration from many natural collective
systems that solve complex problems in search and optimisation.
 Characteristics of swarm
intelligence systems

• Swarm Intelligence systems are typically made up of a population of

simple agents interacting locally with one another and with their
environment.

• Swarm Intelligence agents typically follow very simple rules:

• There is no centralised control structure dictating how individual

agents should react and behave;

• instead local interactions between agents lead to the emergence of

[seemingly] intelligent global behaviour.

• Natural examples of Swarm Intelligence include ant colonies, bird

flocking, animal herding, bacterial growth, and fish schooling ...

• ... even, as we shall see, workshop delegates seeking a good place to

eat in an unfamiliar town!
 The Restaurant Game
• A group of delegates arrive in a foreign town for an extended workshop on the
‘Philosophy of the Information and Computer Sciences’ and need to find a good
place to eat.

• A ‘good’ place to eat is the restaurant where most delegates are likely to
choose a meal they deem ‘GOOD’.

• An individual delegate’s response to a randomly selected meal from a

restaurant menu {GOOD or BAD} is termed a ‘partial hypothesis evaluation’;
it provides partial evidence on the restaurant’s overall quality.

• The ‘search space’ (each delegate’s hypothesis space) is the set of all
restaurants in the town.

• A naive exhaustive search by all the delegates for the best restaurant is impractical
as there will be too many (restaurant : dish) combinations to evaluate over the
duration of the summer school.
 A simple metaphor* for a stochastic
diffusion search to find a ‘good’ restaurant
• EACH DELEGATE:
1. Opens ‘Yellow Pages’ and selects a restaurant to visit at random, so defining the
agent’s initial restaurant hypothesis.

2. Partial hypothesis evaluation: at dinner the delegate selects a meal from the menu at
random and subsequently decides if it was ‘GOOD’ or ‘BAD’.

3. Utilising Passive recruitment: the next morning at breakfast …

4. IF <last night’s meal was ‘GOOD’>
5. THEN maintain restaurant hypothesis and GOTO (2)
• ELSE IF <last night’s meal was ‘BAD’> THEN communicate with a random
colleague:

1. IF <colleague’s meal was ‘GOOD’>

2. THEN adopt colleague’s restaurant hypothesis and GOTO (2)
3. ELSE GOTO (1).

* The ‘Restaurant Game’ is offered as an illustration of SDS diffusion and partial evaluation mechanisms only; the restaurant game is not fully isomorphic to SDS in some pathological cases.
 NESTER: a connectionist
framework to perform SDS
• Retina and Memory cells:
• Correspond to search space and target.
• Temporally encode what a feature is and
where it is via Inter Spike Intervals, ISI’s.

• Matching cells:
• Correspond to a population of SDS agents.
• Periodically broadcast their hypothesis to
other matching cells encoded via an Inter
Spike Interval, (ISI).

• All cells types operate independently and

asynchronously.
 NESTER implements SDS
• In our 2009 paper Nasuto, Bishop & de
Meyer demonstrate that in its operation
NESTER instantiates Stochastic Diffusion
Search.

• Hence, over time, the hypothesis

maintained by a dynamic cluster of
matching cells will cluster around the best
fit of the target on the retina [search
space].

• Hence synchronisation of matching cell

hypothesis-signals (encoded via ISIs)
indicates convergence onto the ‘best fit’
location of the target on the retina.
 Knowledge representation in
NESTER
• Each NESTER matching cell processes bi-variate information as an
ISI encoding a ‘feature’ value and an ‘identifier’ value.

• A ‘feature’ value:

• Temporal encoding of the value of a target ‘feature’.

• An ‘identifier’ value:

• Temporal encoding of the relative position of the feature

(either on the retina or in the target).

• Hence in NESTER knowledge is not restricted to arity zero

predicates and knowledge is naturally processed as ‘tokens’ not
‘types’.
Non-spatial binding of semantic
knowledge in NESTER
• Unlike conventional connectionist systems, in NESTER knowledge is not
physically bound to specific matching cells, as the activity of individual
cells dynamically fluctuates over time.

• Hence in an individual matching cell (or specific groups of cells),

activity has no fixed semantic interpretation.

• Instead, by process of communication and interaction, a network of

NESTER matching cells naturally self-organise in response to
environmental stimuli.

• On convergence, temporal stability in the search space is reflected by

collective temporal stability in a pattern of activity across matching
cells.

• Such a cluster is dynamic in nature, yet stable, analogous to, “a forest

whose contours do not change but whose individual trees do”, (Arthur).
Stochastic Diffusion Processes:
cognition as communication
• In this talk I have criticised the ubiquity of the computational metaphor in Cognitive
Science.

• I have introduced the ‘Restaurant Game’ as a metaphor for a simple Stochastic

Diffusion Search (SDS) and subsequently described NESTER, as a spiking neuron
connectionist implementation of SDS.

• In conclusion I suggest that NESTER is a potentially interesting cognitive architecture

as it:

• is not vulnerable to [at least some of] the standard critiques of computational
connectionism;

• and is most naturally understood in terms of [the metaphors of] interaction and
communication.

• For SDS demo see: <http://doc.gold.ac.uk/~map01mm/SDSSim/>.

• For SDP repository see <http://www.doc.gold.ac.uk/~mas02mb/sdp/index.htm>.
Some investigations employing
Stochastic Diffusion Processes
• A unification mechanism for Baars’ ‘global workspace’ and Dennett’s ‘multiple drafts’ (Nasuto); a solution to
the binding problem (Nasuto); a model for multi-stable visual attention (Nasuto); models of visual attention
(Summers); a novel metaphor for cognitive processing (Nasuto, Bishop et al.); parameter estimation / 3D
computer vision (Bishop; Myatt); resource allocation (Majid); sequence detection (Jones); lip tracking (Grech-
Cini & McKee); eye tracking (Bishop & Torr); mobile robot localisation (Beattie et al.); site selection for
wireless networks (Hurley & Whitaker); speech recognition (Nicolaou); methods for automated object
placement in virtual scenes (Cant Langensiepen); feature tracking in Atmospheric Motion Vectors (Hernandez-
Carrascal & Nasuto); system for hybridized efficient genetic algorithms to solve bi-objective optimization
problems with application to network computing (US PATENT 60/941,600); automatic reconstruction of 3D
dendritic structure from optical light microscopy serial stacks (Nasuto); physically inspired artificial learning
models (Ruta & Gabrys); cellular automata and immunity amplified stochastic diffusion search (Coulter &
Ehlers); hybrid control system for collectives of evolvable nanorobots and microrobots ([US PATENT
AG06F1900FI] Solomon Research); individual customers influence on the operation of virtual power plants
(Britta [MVV Energie]); stochastic diffusion search for real-time web search (Hameed); swarm intelligence
systems for transportation engineering: principles and applications (Teodorovic); stochastic diffusion search
and voting methods (Nircan); swarming behaviour in wagering gaming machines ([PATENT WO 2009005578
20090108] ); noise, cost and speed-accuracy trade-offs: decision-making in a decentralized system (Marshall,
Dornhaus, Franks & Kovacs); computational molecular biology (Jones); moon rover localisation (Hari &
Thiyagarajan); testing and evaluation of the effectiveness of the stochastic search and optimization alogrithms
developed in a dynamic military systems environment ([US Military Research Call] ); swarm intelligence
stability based on stochastic diffusion search (Abbas, Mudathir, Rao & Rao); stochastic programming of
computer agents and system of systems designs (US Military).