Studies of Goal Directed Movements by Emanuel V. Todorov

The main idea [of the discussion on a Bayesian model of sensory-motor processing] was that the sensory-motor system uses a casual model to predict the outcomes of hypothetical actions, and a generative model to predict sensory stimuli arising from hypothetical states of the world. These two models are then "inverted" via some powerful computation. [The Kalman filtering algorithm] does exactly that: the first line is the casual model describing the hand dynamics, and the second line is the generative model describing how sensory inputs arise. (p. 29)

Motor templates and learning

Memory decay and target resampling

Imagine that for some reason the controller is using inaccurate estimates of the noise terms in the system. In particular it is too confident in the sensory input (G is smaller than the actual amount of sensory noise) and too skeptical about stability of the world (D is larger than the actual amount of additive system noise). Such a controller will use a Kalman gain K larger than the optimal value i.e. it will overcorrect based on sensory inputs; in particular, in the absence of inputs the gain will not become exactly 0 and thus the state estimate (memory) will gradually degrade. Furthermore, the estimated variance of the state will be larger than its true value, thus from the point of view of the controller it will be advantageous to sample the sensory input as often as possible, and in particular look at the targets even if they have been presented before the movement. (pp. 38-9)

Sensory adaptations

Using a default control law L that corrects for systematic perturbations detected on previous trials can have effects quite similar to sensory adaptations. (p. 39)

It is possible that the primary objective of the adaptation process is restoring performance of the task (i.e. acquire the target withing the time limit) rather than restoring the shape of the baseline trajectory -- the latter being an epiphenomenon. (p. 93)

Emotion and Consciousness: End of a continuum
Yuri I. Alexandrov, Mikko E. Sams
Cognitive Brain Research 25 (2005) 387-405

The Magical Number Seven, Plus ot Minus Two: Some Limits on Our Capacity for Processing Information
by George A. Miller

There is a clear and definite limit to the accuracy with which we can identify absolutely the magnitude of a unidimensional stimulus variable. I would propose to call this limit the span of absolute judgment, and I maintain that for unidimensional judgments this span is usually somewhere in the neighborhood of seven. We are not completely at the mercy of this limited span, however, because we have a variety of techniques for getting around it and increasing the accuracy of our judgments. The three most important of these devices are (a) to make relative rather than absolute judgments; or, if that is not possible, (b) to increase the number of dimensions along which the stimuli can differ; or © to arrange the task in such a way that we make a sequence of several absolute judgments in a row.

I suspect that there is also a span of perceptual dimensionality and that this span is somewhere in the neighborhood of ten, but I must add at once that there is no objective evidence to support this suspicion.

...there is a finite span of immediate memory and that for a lot of different kinds of test materials this span is about seven items in length. Absolute judgment is limited by the amount of information. Immediate memory is limited by the number of items. In order to capture this distinction in somewhat picturesque terms, I have fallen into the custom of distinguishing between bits of information and chunks of information. The span of immediate memory seems to be almost independent of the number of bits per chunk, at least over the range that has been examined to date. The contrast of the terms bit and chunk also serves to highlight the fact that we are not very definite about what constitutes a chunk of information.

Banishing the Homunculus: Making Working Memory Work
Hazy, T.E., Frank, M.J. & O'Reilly, R.C. (2006)
Neuroscience.

An important paper that outlines six key functional demands underlying working memory and presents a working memory model based on representations in the prefrontal cortex which are dynamically gated by the basal ganglia (PBWM). Working memory is described as controlled activation of stable configurations that exist throughout the cortex (rather than a separate module with information being moved between long-term memory and working memory bufers).

How to Build Complete Creatures Rather than Isolated Cognitive Simulators
by Rodney Brooks (1991)

A Robot that Walks; Emergent Behavior from a Carefully Evolved Network
by Rodney Brooks (1989)

The Phenomenon of Science: a Cybernetic Approach to Human Evolution
by Valentin F. Turchin

Handbook of Cognition and Emotion by Tim Dalgleish, Mick Power

Chapter 3: Basic Emotions by Paul Ekman

Robot Emotion: A Functional Perspective
by Cynthia Breaseal and Rodney Brooks

A unifying view of the basis of social cognition (copy)
Vittorio Gallese, Christian Keysers and Giacomo Rizzolatti

In this article we provide a unifying neural hypothesis on how individuals understand the actions and emotions of others. Our main claim is that the fundamental mechanism at the basis of the experiential understanding of others’ actions is the activation of the mirror neuron system. A similar mechanism, but involving the activation of viscero-motor centers, underlies the experiential understanding of the emotions of others.

These studies suggest that the activity of mirror neurons correlates with action understanding. The sensory features of the perceived actions (partially seen or just heard) are fundamental to the activation of mirror neurons only inasmuch as they trigger the motor representation of the same actions within the observer/listener brain.

...these data show that the human motor system codes both the goal of an observed action and the way in which the observed action is performed.

...these data indicate that when we see someone performing an action, besides the activation of various visual areas, there is a concurrent activation of part of the same motor circuits that are recruited when we ourselves perform that action.

...a similar mechanism is also involved in our capacity to understand and experience the emotional states of others.

You and Your Research
Richard Hamming

One of the characteristics of successful scientists is having courage. Once you get your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can't, almost surely you are not going to.

1. What are the most important problems in your field?
2. Are you working on one of them?
3. Why not?

When you are famous it is hard to work on small problems.

``Knowledge and productivity are like compound interest.'' Given two people of approximately the same ability and one person who works ten percent more than the other, the latter will more than twice outproduce the former. The more you know, the more you learn; the more you learn, the more you can do; the more you can do, the more the opportunity - it is very much like compound interest.

...it is not sufficient to do a job, you have to sell it. [...] There are three things you have to do in selling. You have to learn to write clearly and well so that people will read it, you must learn to give reasonably formal talks, and you also must learn to give informal talks.

The people who do great work with less ability but who are committed to it, get more done that those who have great skill and dabble in it, who work during the day and go home and do other things and come back and work the next day. They don't have the deep commitment that is apparently necessary for really first-class work. They turn out lots of good work, but we were talking, remember, about first-class work.

...some of the reasons why so many people who have greatness within their grasp don't succeed are: they don't work on important problems, they don't become emotionally involved, they don't try and change what is difficult to some other situation which is easily done but is still important, and they keep giving themselves alibis why they don't.

If you read all the time what other people have done you will think the way they thought. If you want to think new thoughts that are different, then do what a lot of creative people do - get the problem reasonably clear and then refuse to look at any answers until you've thought the problem through carefully how you would do it, how you could slightly change the problem to be the correct one.

The present growth of knowledge will choke itself off until we get different tools. I believe that books which try to digest, coordinate, get rid of the duplication, get rid of the less fruitful methods and present the underlying ideas clearly of what we know now, will be the things the future generations will value.

...in the long-haul, books which leave out what's not essential are more important than books which tell you everything because you don't want to know everything.

Somewhere around every seven years make a significant, if not complete, shift in your field.

Motor Theory of Language Origin and Evolution
by Robin Allott

There is considerable experimental evidence, and considerable theoretical coherence, for the view that there is a fundamental relation between the syntax of language and physiological syntax, the syntaxes of action and perception, that the syntax of language is biologically based.

...language currently in use is analogous to skilled motor action

The group of premotor neurons can participate in more than one behaviour and constitute what is described as a polymorphic network. A polymorphic network is one that can be organised into multiple states or configurations called circuits. Each circuit may involve the entire set of neurons within the network or some subset of them; each circuit can be transformed into the others so that the network can adopt any one of its different states. Pattern generation emerges as a property of the network as a whole. The ability of the network to generate patterned activity depends upon the interaction of both the synaptic connectivity and the intrinsic cellular properties of each neuron. The command function is viewed not only as initiating action but also as instructional, serving to organise the network into an appropriate configuration to generate a particular motor pattern, as well as selecting and activating the motor system. The individual expression of the subcircuits in the network is dependent upon both the type of initial stimulus and the internal state of the animal; this points to a new concept of network plasticity.

Language is a form of action

...it appears probable that our ancestors had the potential for discriminating speech sounds we now use before they could produce them; there is evidence that human speech perception employs prelinguistic abilities shared with other animals to distinguish between phonemic groupings

...in mammals, there is some natural categorical system, by no means necessarily an auditory one, which has served as the basis for the construction of human phonemic speech production and speech perception. In the monkey and in the chinchilla, as well as in the infant, the sounds heard are referred back to a system which is organised so as to distinguish between certain categories of sound, essentially to some neuronal assembly which analyses in a uniform way. What could the nature of this analysing device be? The proposal in this paper is that the common element is generalised motor patterns, motor programs. The motor programs for producing phonemic sounds are derived from the primitive motor programs for producing bodily movement generally, diverted to producing movement of the organs of articulation.

Syntax is not inherent in the words employed or ideas to be expressed. It is a generalised pattern imposed upon the specific acts as they occur...

Curiously, this theory could be presented as a return, at a deeper level, to earlier ideas on the essentially motor basis of brain processes, though Watson of course had an over-simplified and incorrect view of the real complexities involved in motor organisation. Two final reflections: "language is the immediate actuality of thought" (Marx and Engels) becomes true if thought is the interweaving of neural processes underlying perception and the formation of motor programs. "Language is action" if beside the speech-elements (phonemes), the speech-element compounds (words) and speech sequences (syntax) one can set a motor-alphabet (of elementary motor programs for bodily action), motor-words (actions formed from motor-elements) and motor-sentences (formed from sequences of motor-words).