Slow but flexible or fast but rigid? Discrete and continuous processes compared.
| Autor: | Priorelli M; Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy, Padova, Italy., Stoianov IP; Institute of Cognitive Sciences and Technologies, National Research Council of Italy, Padova, Italy. |
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| Jazyk: | angličtina |
| Zdroj: | Heliyon [Heliyon] 2024 Oct 18; Vol. 10 (20), pp. e39129. Date of Electronic Publication: 2024 Oct 18 (Print Publication: 2024). |
| DOI: | 10.1016/j.heliyon.2024.e39129 |
| Abstrakt: | A tradeoff exists when dealing with complex tasks composed of multiple steps. High-level cognitive processes can find the best sequence of actions to achieve a goal in uncertain environments, but they are slow and require significant computational demand. In contrast, lower-level processing allows reacting to environmental stimuli rapidly, but with limited capacity to determine optimal actions or to replan when expectations are not met. Through reiteration of the same task, biological organisms find the optimal tradeoff: from action primitives, composite trajectories gradually emerge by creating task-specific neural structures. The two frameworks of active inference - a recent brain paradigm that views action and perception as subject to the same free energy minimization imperative - well capture high-level and low-level processes of human behavior, but how task specialization occurs in these terms is still unclear. In this study, we compare two strategies on a dynamic pick-and-place task: a hybrid (discrete-continuous) model with planning capabilities and a continuous-only model with fixed transitions. Both models rely on a hierarchical (intrinsic and extrinsic) structure, well suited for defining reaching and grasping movements, respectively. Our results show that continuous-only models perform better and with minimal resource expenditure but at the cost of less flexibility. Finally, we propose how discrete actions might lead to continuous attractors and compare the two frameworks with different motor learning phases, laying the foundations for further studies on bio-inspired task adaptation. Competing Interests: The authors declare the following financial interests/personal relationships which may be considered as potential competing interests: Ivilin Peev Stoianov reports financial support was provided by EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation Future and Emerging Technologies under Grant Agreement 951910. If there are other authors, they declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper. (© 2024 The Author(s).) |
| Databáze: | MEDLINE |
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