A bio-inspired model of behavior considering decision-making and planning,spatial attention and basic motor commands processes

Cognitive architectures (CA) are an IA approach to implement computer systems with human-like behavior. Fundamental exhibited human capabilities include planning and decision-making. In that regard, numerous AI systems successfully exhibit human-like behavior but are limited to either achieving specific objectives or are restrained to too heavily constrained environments, which makes them unsuitable in the presence of unforeseen situations where autonomy is required. To try to alleviate the problem, we present a bio-inspired computational model to solve the autonomous navigation problem of a computational entity in a controlled context. This proposal is the result of the interaction between planning and decision-making, spatial attention and the motor cognitive functions. The proposed model is based on neuroscientific evidence concerning the involved cognitive functions and is part of a more general cognitive architecture. In the case study developed to validate our idea, we can see that the processes previously identified play an important role to accomplish spatial navigation. In the case study presented, an agent achieves the navigation over an unexplored maze from an initial to a final position successfully. The reunited results motivate us to continue improving our model considering attentional information to influence the agent’s motor behavior.     

Contrasting behavioral looking procedures: a case study on infant speech segmentation

This paper compared three different procedures common in infant speech perception research: a headturn preference procedure (HPP) and a central-fixation (CF) procedure with either automated eye-tracking (CF-ET) or manual coding (CF-M). In theory, such procedures all measure the same underlying speech perception and learning mechanisms and the choice between them should ideally be irrelevant in unveiling infant preference. However, the ManyBabies study (ManyBabies Consortium, 2019), a cross-laboratory collaboration on infants’ preference for child-directed speech, revealed that choice of procedure can modulate effect sizes. Here we examined whether procedure also modulates preference in paradigms that add a learning phase prior to test: a speech segmentation paradigm. Such paradigms are particularly important for studying the learning mechanisms infants can employ for language acquisition. We carried out the same familiarization-then-test experiment with the three different procedures (32 unique infants per procedure). Procedures were compared on various factors, such as overall effect, average looking time and drop-out rate. The key observations are that the HPP yielded a larger familiarity preference, but also reported larger drop-out rates. This raises questions about the generalizability of results. We argue that more collaborative research into different procedures in infant preference experiments is required in order to interpret the variation in infant preferences more accurately.     

Footshock/ECS induced state dependent learning in rats parametric evaluation of ECS intensity and time of testing

Rats were given a footshock followed by ECS of either low or high intensity. Controls received neither footshock nor ECS. Twenty-four hours later all subjects acquired a simple position habit in a water maze. Then, independent subgroups were reversal trained at 24-hr intervals up to 144 hr post-treatment. Compared to controls, rats given footshock, and ECS showed memory for training at the initial test followed by amnesia, memory recovery, and finally amnesia at subsequent tests. The alternating pattern of retention appeared to be a function of ECS intensity. In a second experiment, rats were first maze trained then given footshock and ECS 24 hr later. Like the results of the first experiment, ensuing tests indicated an alternating retention function in experimental animals again influenced by ECS intensity. Several possible explanations of these results were discussed, and it was suggested that the altering retention function observed in the experimental animals resulted from a footshock and ECS induced state dependency effect that subsided and recurred spontaneously up to 144 hr post-treatment.     

Habit outweighs planning in grasp selection for object manipulation

Object-directed grasping movements are adapted to intended interactions with an object. We address whether adjusting the grasp for object manipulation is controlled habitually, based on past experiences, or by goal-directed planning, based on an evaluation of the expected action outcomes. Therefore, we asked participants to grasp and rotate a dial. In such tasks, participants typically grasp the dial with an excursed, uncomfortable arm posture, which then allows to complete the dial rotation in a comfortable end-state. We extended this task by manipulating the contingency between the orientation of the grasp and the resulting end-state of the arm. A one-step (control) group rotated the dial to a single target. A two-step group rotated the dial to an initial target and then in the opposite direction. A three-step group rotated the dial to the initial target, then in the opposite direction, and then back to the initial target. During practice, the two-step and three-step groups reduced the excursion of their grasps, thus avoiding overly excursed arm postures after the second rotation. When the two-step and three-step groups were asked to execute one-step rotations, their grasps resembled those that were acquired during the two-step and three-step rotations, respectively. However, the carry-over was not complete. This suggests that adjusting grasps for forthcoming object manipulations is controlled by a mixture of habitual and goal-directed processes. In the present experiment, the former contributed approximately twice as much to grasp selection than the latter.     

A pilot study exploring the use of a telephone-assisted planning intervention to promote parental support for physical activity among children and youth with disabilities

Parent support is an important contributor to physical activity (PA) among children and youth with disabilities (CYD). Although many parents of CYD are motivated to provide parent PA support, CYD remain insufficiently active. The multi-process action control model has been applied to understand parent PA support and highlights behavioral regulation strategies such as action and coping planning as critical for translating intentions into behavior. Parents may struggle to create and carryout planning without support. There is no known research examining telephone support as a tool to promote planning and subsequent parent PA support behavior.MethodParents (43 mothers and 6 fathers) of CYD (child M_age = 12.53 years ± 5.53; 75% male; 38.6% developmental disability) completed a baseline questionnaire and were subsequently randomized to a telephone-assisted planning experimental group twice over four weeks (n = 23) or a control group who had access to planning tools but no telephone assistance (n = 26).ResultsNo significant main or interaction effects emerged for parent PA support behavior. However, a significant time × condition interaction was found for behavioral regulation strategies (i.e., action and coping planning and self-monitoring; F(1,44) = 5.05, p = 0.03) indicating a significant increase in the use of behavioral regulation strategies for parent PA support from baseline, for parents assigned to the telephone-assisted intervention.ConclusionThese findings suggest potential for planning support as a tool to enhance behavioral regulation strategies related to parent PA support among parents of CYD.     

HIV Infection and the Central Nervous System: A Primer

The purpose of this brief review is to prepare readers who may be unfamiliar with Human Immunodeficiency Virus/Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (HIV/AIDS) and the rapidly accumulating changes in the epidemic by providing an introduction to HIV disease and its treatment. The general concepts presented here will facilitate understanding of the papers in this issue on HIV-associated neurocognitive disorders (HAND). Toward that end, we briefly review the biology of HIV and how it causes disease in its human host, its epidemiology, and how antiretroviral treatments are targeted to interfere with the molecular biology that allows the virus to reproduce. Finally, we describe what is known about how HIV injures the nervous system, leading to HAND, and discuss potential strategies for preventing or treating the effects of HIV on the nervous system.     

Modest sociality and the distinctiveness of intention

Cases of modest sociality are cases of small scale shared intentional agency in the absence of asymmetric authority relations. I seek a conceptual framework that adequately supports our theorizing about such modest sociality. I want to understand what in the world constitutes such modest sociality. I seek an understanding of the kinds of normativity that are central to modest sociality. And throughout we need to keep track of the relations—conceptual, metaphysical, normative—between individual agency and modest sociality. In pursuit of these theoretical aims, I propose that a central phenomenon is shared intention. I argue that an adequate understanding of the distinctiveness of the intentions of individuals allows us to provide a construction of attitudes of the participants, and of relevant inter-relations and contexts that constitutes shared intention. I explain how shared intention, so understood, differs from a simple equilibrium within common knowledge. And I briefly contrast my views with aspects of views of John Searle and Margaret Gilbert.

Planning, personality, and prediction: The role of future focus in optimistic time predictions

The present studies examined cognitive processes underlying the tendency to underestimate project completion times. Two experiments tested the hypothesis that people generate overly optimistic predictions, in part, because they focus narrowly on their future plans for the target task and thus neglect other useful sources of information. Consistent with the hypothesis, instructing participants to adopt a “future focus”—in which they generated concrete, specific plans for the task at hand—led them to make more optimistic predictions about when they would complete their intended Christmas shopping (Study 1) and major school assignments (Study 2). The future focus manipulation did not have a corresponding effect on actual completion times, and thus increased the degree of optimistic bias in prediction. The studies also demonstrated that the optimistic prediction bias generalized across different task domains, relevant individual differences (i.e., trait optimism and procrastination), and other contextual variations.     

Perceived benefits of using an Internet-based interactive career planning system

Making Better Career Decisions (MBCD) is an Internet-based interactive career planning system designed to help deliberating individuals. The present research examined the benefits of a dialogue with MBCD, by analyzing 712 users’ perceptions of its contribution to their career decision-making process, and locating variables associated with these perceptions. A pre-dialogue and a post-dialogue questionnaire were used to collect the users’ perceptions of its benefits and measure the change in the degree of decidedness. Perceived benefit was derived from participants’ ratings of the degree of progress they had made in their career decision-making process, whether they had learned about additional factors to be considered and their career-related preferences, as well as their ratings of the quality of the list of “promising” career alternatives presented to them during their dialogue with MBCD. This composite perceived benefit was found to be positively associated with the users’ decidedness at the completion of the dialogue with MBCD. Users’ satisfaction with the length and variety of their personal “promising alternatives” list was associated with a higher perceived benefit.