Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men

Curiosity shapes spatial exploration and cognitive map formation in humans

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Cognitive maps are thought to arise, at least in part, from our intrinsic curiosity to explore unknown places. However, it remains untested how curiosity shapes aspects of spatial exploration in humans. Combining a virtual reality task with indices of exploration complexity, we found that pre-exploration curiosity states predicted how much individuals spatially explored environments, whereas markers of visual exploration determined post-exploration feelings of interest. Moreover, individual differences in curiosity traits, particularly Stress Tolerance, modulated the relationship between curiosity and spatial exploration, suggesting the capacity to cope with uncertainty enhances the curiosity-exploration link. Furthermore, both curiosity and spatial exploration predicted how precisely participants could recall spatial-relational details of the environment, as measured by a sketch map task. These results provide new evidence for a link between curiosity and exploratory behaviour, and how curiosity might shape cognitive map formation.

Edward Chace Tolman e o uso da aprendizagem latentee do reforçamento como princípios explicativos

Article

Jun 2015

O objetivo deste ensaio é apresentar uma breve caracterização da aprendizagem latente para, em seguida, apresentar os limites da aprendizagem por reforçamento segundo Tolman. As perguntas de pesquisa fo-ram: qual o papel da aprendizagem latente no sistema tolmaniano? Qual o papel atribuído por Tolman ao reforçamento na explicação do comportamento? Quais as críticas diretas de Tolman à obra de Skinner? A aprendizagem latente é um modelo de aprendizagem controlada por propósitos e pelo ambiente. Tolman atribui três problemas à análise skinneriana: 1) a resposta aprendida não corresponde nem a própria resposta incondicionada nem a uma resposta próxima em topografia a esta; 2) ao emprego equivocado dos termos estímulo e resposta ao tratar dos elementos descritos na aquisição do hábito; e 3) à restrição do controle causal do comportamento à contiguidade temporal entre estímulo e resposta. Tolman julga que a redução dos mecanismos de aprendizagem aos princípios do reforçamento geraria: 1) a desconsideração do papel que os componentes biológicos e cognitivos exerceriam sobre o controle imediato do comportamento; e 2) a restrição temporal da explicação por reforçamento. Tolman apoia seu sistema sobre a aprendizagem latente, inclusive em suas críticas ao princípio do reforçamento, propondo uma análise operacional do comporta-mento que não comprometesse sua natureza intencional ou teleológica.

Thinking in Space: How Multimodal Large Language Models See, Remember, and Recall Spaces

Preprint

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Humans possess the visual-spatial intelligence to remember spaces from sequential visual observations. However, can Multimodal Large Language Models (MLLMs) trained on million-scale video datasets also ``think in space'' from videos? We present a novel video-based visual-spatial intelligence benchmark (VSI-Bench) of over 5,000 question-answer pairs, and find that MLLMs exhibit competitive - though subhuman - visual-spatial intelligence. We probe models to express how they think in space both linguistically and visually and find that while spatial reasoning capabilities remain the primary bottleneck for MLLMs to reach higher benchmark performance, local world models and spatial awareness do emerge within these models. Notably, prevailing linguistic reasoning techniques (e.g., chain-of-thought, self-consistency, tree-of-thoughts) fail to improve performance, whereas explicitly generating cognitive maps during question-answering enhances MLLMs' spatial distance ability.

The detour problem in a stochastic environment: Tolman revisited

Preprint

Sep 2017

We designed a grid world task to study human planning and re-planning behavior in an unknown stochastic environment. In our grid world, participants were asked to travel from a random starting point to a random goal position while maximizing their reward. Because they were not familiar with the environment, they needed to learn its characteristics from experience to plan optimally. Later in the task, we randomly blocked the optimal path to investigate whether and how people adjust their original plans to find a detour. To this end, we developed and compared 12 different models. These models were different on how they learned and represented the environment and how they planned to catch the goal. The majority of our participants were able to plan optimally. We also showed that people were capable of revising their plans when an unexpected event occurred. The result from the model comparison showed that the model-based reinforcement learning approach provided the best account for the data and outperformed heuristics in explaining the behavioral data in the re-planning trials.

The walkable neighborhood and public art: using AI to measure the impact of visual interest on pedestrian behavior

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025

This paper explores the relationship between public art and walking behavior using quantifiable approaches based on state-of-the-art machine-learning methods. The research team developed a preliminary method for using observational analysis and real-time object detection to study pedestrian engagement with public art. A custom machine-learning script was developed in Python based on open-source YOLOv3, an algorithm first described by Redmon et al. By building on Redmon et al.’s work, we increased the reliability and validity of our own custom script, which was tested on a range of walking conditions both at our site and using stock video footage of streets in other locales. Video recordings of pedestrian movements near sculptural artwork on Tufts campus captured by a low-tech security camera were run through the algorithm to generate path diagram images of passersby the artwork, enabling the research team to select videos where pedestrian behaviors of interest occur for empirical review. Research results evidence social walking behavior (groups of two or more) and proximity to walking path (adjacent to the sidewalk) are correlated with greater pedestrian engagement with artwork (looking at the art). These interdisciplinary methods successfully selected videos where pedestrians engaged with public artwork, verifying AI technologies are a promising research tool for studying walking behavior in a more data-driven way than has been done previously. Quantitative measures of pedestrian responses to public art can help urban planners and designers to promote art’s benefits including walkability, quality-of-life, and well-being.

Behavioral investigation of allocentric and egocentric cognitive maps in human spatial memory

Preprint

Full-text available

Jan 2025

Spatial memory is a fundamental cognitive function that enables humans and other species to encode and recall the locations of items in their environments. Humans employ diverse strategies to support spatial memory, including the use of cognitive maps. Cognitive maps are mental representations of the environment that organize its content along two or more continuous dimensions. In allocentric cognitive maps, these dimensions form a Cartesian coordinate system referenced to the environment. In egocentric cognitive maps, the dimensions form a polar coordinate system centered on the subject. To better understand how humans employ allocentric and egocentric cognitive maps for spatial memory, we performed a behavioral study with a novel task designed to directly and explicitly assess both types of cognitive maps. During encoding periods, participants navigated through a virtual environment and encountered objects at different locations. During recall periods, participants aimed at remembering these locations in abstract allocentric and egocentric coordinate systems. Our results show that relationships between the objects and the environment, such as their distance to boundaries and corners, were associated with allocentric memory performance. Relationships between the objects and the participant, including their distance and orientation to the participant's starting position, were linked to egocentric memory performance. Spatial feedback during recall supported performance within allocentric and egocentric domains, but not across domains. These findings are compatible with the notion that allocentric and egocentric cognitive maps operate as (partially) independent systems for spatial memory, each specialized in processing specific types of spatial relationships.

AB0088 MECHANICAL STIMULUS INDUCED BY CHIROPRACTIC MANIPULATION REDUCES CARTILAGE, SUBCHONDRAL BONE DAMAGE AND SYNOVIAL INFLAMMATION IN AN EXPERIMENTAL MODEL OF OSTEOARTHRITIS

Conference Paper

May 2019

Background Osteoarthritis (OA) is a degenerative joint disease characterized by cartilage degradation, although both subchondral bone deterioration and synovial inflammation are also hallmarks of the disease. Chiropractic manipulation (CM) is a therapeutic approach focused on the diagnosis, treatment and prevention of musculoskeletal disorders. It is essentially manual, allowing the chiropractor to restore the normal range of motion and function of the joints, muscles, and ligaments. Clinical evidences suggest that CM might exert positive effects in OA patients. Objectives The aim of this study was to evaluate the effects of CM on cartilage, subchondral bone and synovitis state in an OA rabbit model. Methods Ten (4 months old) male New Zealand rabbits underwent knee surgery to induce OA by transection of anterior cruciate ligament. One week after the surgery, CM was performed using the chiropractic adjusting instrument ActivatorV as follows: Force 2 setting was applied onto the tibial tubercle of the right hind limb (true manipulation, TM-OA group), at an angle of approximately 90°, from medial to lateral, whereas the corresponding left hind limb received a false manipulation (FM-OA group) consisting of ActivatorV firing in the air and slightly touching the tibial tubercle. These procedures were repeated 3 times a week for 8 weeks. Three healthy animals were used as control. Following sacrifice, μCT and histological damage evaluation (Mankin score) were done in femur and tibiae. RANKL/OPG protein expressions were studied by immunohistochemistry in tibia samples. Sinovitis was assessed by Krenn score and immunohistochemistry for macrophages (RAM11) and angiogenesis (CD31) were done. Protein expression of VEGF, COX2, TNFa, IL-1b and MMP3 were determinated by Western Blot. Results In the OA rabbits, subchondral BMD decreased in relation to control, been partially reversed in the tibiae of TM-OA group. When subchondral trabecular bone structural parameters were analyzed by microCT, a significant decrease of bone volume/trabecular volume (BV/TV), trabecular number (Tb.N) and trabecular thickness (Tb.Th) was observed in the OA rabbits, while trabecular separation (Tb.S) increased compared to control animals. TM-OA group showed a significant improvement of these parameters compare to FM-OA group. FM-OA joints had higher Mankin score (cartilage damage) than control joints, and TM decreased Mankin score compare to FM-OA (p< 0.05). The study of RANKL and OPG in cartilage and subchondral bone showed that the significant increase in the RANKL/OPG ratio observed in both tissues respect to controls, was partially reversed in TM-OA group. OA synovial membranes presented a total Krenn synovitis score higher than healthy animals; however, TM-OA rabbits exhibited scores lower than FM-OA (p< 0.05). RAM11 immunostaining revealed lower expression in TM-OA synovial membranes compared to FM-OA (p< 0.05). Finally, the significant increase in proinflammatory cytokines (COX2, TNFa and IL-1b) and MMP3 were observed in the synovial membranes of OA rabbits respect to controls, being partially reversed in TM-OA group. Likewise, VEGF and CD31 expression was higher in FM-OA synovium compared to TM-OA. Conclusion These results suggest that mechanical stimulus induced by CM may retard the pathologic progression of OA. The beneficial effects of CM might be associated with an improvement in bone and cartilage damage and also inflammatory state. Disclosure of Interests None declared

Enhancing sustainable entrepreneurship in SMEs: a multi-criteria analysis of internal initiatives and their causal relationships

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025
ANN OPER RES

The United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) create a global framework for companies seeking to meet diverse sustainability challenges. Small and medium-sized enterprises’ (SMEs) socioeconomic importance makes their implementation of sustainability initiatives and a strategic orientation toward long-term sustainability quite crucial. This study focuses on creating a multi-criteria decision support analysis system to identify internal initiatives that can improve sustainable entrepreneurship (SE) indices. A mixed-method approach is applied based on cognitive mapping and decision making trial and evaluation laboratory (DEMATEL) technique to cover qualitative and quantitative aspects. The results clarify the causal relationships between six clusters labeled as follows: Technology and Equipment; Collaborative Governance; Social Practices and Community; Environmental Initiatives; Innovation and Entrepreneurship; and Training and Human Capital. Key initiatives that improve SE indices comprise adopting technologically advanced tools, stimulating companies to implement good practices and rewarding good performance, valorizing assets and resources in the regions where companies operate, defining and monitoring environmental goals, enlisting in financial support programs, and concentrating on employees’ quality of life. The findings provide theoretical and practical insights into which strategies significantly promote long-term sustainability. To strengthen the results of the cognitive mapping and DEMATEL analysis, we propose the use of multi-objective programming (MOP) and goal programming (GP) models. These models can help establish objectives that focus on technological advancement, promote best practices, recognize high performance, utilize endogenous resources effectively, define and monitor environmental goals, ensure access to financial support, and enhance employees’ quality of life. Limitations and future research directions are also presented.

Las cuatro preguntas de Tinbergen en la Etología Cognitiva

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Gustavo Caponi

Resumen Las 'cuatro preguntas' con las que Niko Tinbergen delimitó los objetivos epistémicos de la Etología, también son pertinentes a la Etología Cognitiva; pero es necesario consi-derar la peculiaridad de las cuestiones que ellas plantean cuando referidas al estudio de habilidades cognitivas y disposiciones emocionales de los animales conforme ellas son consideradas desde la perspectiva propia de ese dominio disciplinar. Esto, además de ser particularmente importante en el caso de las preguntas por los mecanismos involu-crados tanto en la ejecución de dichas habilidades cognitivas como en la configuración y manifestación de esas disposiciones emotivas, también resulta de relevancia crucial en la comprensión y caracterización de las preguntas que cabe formular sobre el desarrollo, el valor de supervivencia y la historia evolutiva de esas habilidades y disposiciones. Palabras clave: emociones, etología cognitiva, evolución, habilidades cognitivas, Niko Tinbergen. Abstract The 'four questions' with which Niko Tinbergen delimited the epistemic objectives of Ethology are also pertinent to Cognitive Ethology; but it is necessary to consider the peculiarity of the questions they raise when dealing with the study of cognitive abilities and emotional dispositions of animals as they are considered from the perspective of this disciplinary domain. This, besides being particularly important in the case of

Brain Inspired Cognitive Model with Attention for Self-Driving Cars

Preprint

Feb 2017

Perception-driven approach and end-to-end system are two major vision-based frameworks for self-driving cars. However, it is difficult to introduce attention and historical information of autonomous driving process, which are the essential factors for achieving human-like driving into these two methods. In this paper, we propose a novel model for self-driving cars named brain-inspired cognitive model with attention (CMA). This model consists of three parts: a convolutional neural network for simulating human visual cortex, a cognitive map built to describe relationships between objects in complex traffic scene and a recurrent neural network that combines with the real-time updated cognitive map to implement attention mechanism and long-short term memory. The benefit of our model is that can accurately solve three tasks simultaneously:1) detection of the free space and boundaries of the current and adjacent lanes. 2)estimation of obstacle distance and vehicle attitude, and 3) learning of driving behavior and decision making from human driver. More significantly, the proposed model could accept external navigating instructions during an end-to-end driving process. For evaluation, we build a large-scale road-vehicle dataset which contains more than forty thousand labeled road images captured by three cameras on our self-driving car. Moreover, human driving activities and vehicle states are recorded in the meanwhile.

Complete coverage of space favors modularity of the grid system in the brain

Preprint

Oct 2016

Grid cells in the entorhinal cortex fire when animals that are exploring a certain region of space occupy the vertices of a triangular grid that spans the environment. Different neurons feature triangular grids that differ in their properties of periodicity, orientation and ellipticity. Taken together, these grids allow the animal to maintain an internal, mental representation of physical space. Experiments show that grid cells are modular, i.e. there are groups of neurons which have grids with similar periodicity, orientation and ellipticity. We use statistical physics methods to derive a relation between variability of the properties of the grids within a module and the range of space that can be covered completely (i.e. without gaps) by the grid system with high probability. Larger variability shrinks the range of representation, providing a functional rationale for the experimentally observed co-modularity of grid cell periodicity, orientation and ellipticity. We obtain a scaling relation between the number of neurons and the period of a module, given the variability and coverage range. Specifically, we predict how many more neurons are required at smaller grid scales than at larger ones.

Topological Schemas of Memory Spaces

Preprint

Oct 2017

Hippocampal cognitive map---a neuronal representation of the spatial environment---is broadly discussed in the computational neuroscience literature for decades. More recent studies point out that hippocampus plays a major role in producing yet another cognitive framework that incorporates not only spatial, but also nonspatial memories---the memory space. However, unlike cognitive maps, memory spaces have been barely studied from a theoretical perspective. Here we propose an approach for modeling hippocampal memory spaces as an epiphenomenon of neuronal spiking activity. First, we suggest that the memory space may be viewed as a finite topological space---a hypothesis that allows treating both spatial and nonspatial aspects of hippocampal function on equal footing. We then model the topological properties of the memory space to demonstrate that this concept naturally incorporates the notion of a cognitive map. Lastly, we suggest a formal description of the memory consolidation process and point out a connection between the proposed model of the memory spaces to the so-called Morris' schemas, which emerge as the most compact representation of the memory structure.

Transient cell assembly networks encode persistent spatial memories

Preprint

Jun 2016

While cognitive representations of an environment can last for days and even months, the synaptic architecture of the neuronal networks that underlie these representations constantly changes due to various forms of synaptic and structural plasticity at a much faster timescale. This raises an immediate question: how can a transient network maintain a stable representation of space? In the following, we propose a computational model for describing emergence of the hippocampal cognitive map in a network of transient place cell assemblies and demonstrate, using methods of algebraic topology, that such a network can maintain a robust map of the environment.

Challenges and insights of transferring animal maze studies principles to human spatial learning research

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025

Maze tasks, originally developed in animal research, have become a popular method for studying human cognition, particularly with the advent of virtual reality. However, these experiments frequently rely on simplified environments and tasks, which may not accurately reflect the complexity of real-world situations. Our pilot study aims to transfer a multi-alternative maze with a complex task structure, previously demonstrated to be useful in studying animal cognition, to studying human spatial cognition. The challenges to be resolved at this stage included developing a virtual maze and selecting an appropriate instruction that will elicit processes similar to those observed in animal models. A virtual maze was developed, and two types of instructions were provided to the participants: (1) to collect coins; (2) to interact with the maze in order to draw its structure after the game. The results indicate that a more structured instruction with a clear attainable goal (“collect”) prompted more in-depth exploration and engagement with the key elements of the maze, eliciting processes similar to those of animals. While the maze demonstrates promise as a tool for comparative studies, it also has the potential to uncover different aspects of human cognition.

Eye movements follow the dynamic shifts of attention through serial order in verbal working memory

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025

How are arbitrary sequences of verbal information retained and manipulated in working memory? Increasing evidence suggests that serial order in verbal WM is spatially coded and that spatial attention is involved in access and retrieval. Based on the idea that brain areas controlling spatial attention are also involved in oculomotor control, we used eye tracking to reveal how the spatial structure of serial order information is accessed in verbal working memory. In two experiments, participants memorized a sequence of auditory words in the correct order. While their eye movements were being measured, they named the memorized items in a self-determined order in Experiment 1 and in a cued order in Experiment 2. We tested the hypothesis that serial order in verbal working memory interacts with the spatial attention system whereby gaze patterns in visual space closely follow attentional shifts in the internal space of working memory. In both experiments, we found that the gaze shifts in visual space correlated with the spatial shifts of attention along the left-to-right one-dimensional mapping of serial order positions in verbal WM. These findings suggest that spatial attention is employed for dynamically searching through verbal WM and that eye movements reflect the spontaneous association of order and space even in the absence of visuospatial input.

PRINCIPLES OF CIRCULATION AND MOVEMENT CONFIGURATIONS IN HOSPITAL DESIGN

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Jideofor Akubue

Circulation paths can be defined as invisible threads linking internal and external spaces within a building relative to where a person is and the intended final destination. Various studies exist in the need to further understand the relationship between circulation and way-finding, particularly in hospital and healthcare buildings. In this study, a practical approach to hospital circulation design is presented to combine the principles of circulation as a design tool for layout configurations in the design of hospitals. This paper presents Circulation Elements as layers of flow that outline the movement paths within buildings. The study reviewed already established fundamental elements for circulation studies that are notable in architectural philosophies as major components for the way-finding process as it affects circulation in buildings. It further reviewed existing circulation systems to identify the potential patterns of circulation used in modern-day hospital buildings. These circulation principles were finally adopted in the conceptual design of a typical hospital building to justify its applicability. Analysis of the designed hospital circulation system is evaluated using VGA (visibility graph analysis) to identify the significance of carriage pathway sizes in improving visibility fields for indoor way-finding processes. The VGA analysis identified the ease of wayfinding and movement as dependent on the size of circulation spaces. This VGA method of analysis can be adopted by architects and designers for preliminary analysis of carriageways relative to circulation configuration during the design process to ensure improvement of circulation efficiency and way-finding.

Semantic Mapping in Indoor Embodied AI -- A Comprehensive Survey and Future Directions

Preprint

Jan 2025

Intelligent embodied agents (e.g. robots) need to perform complex semantic tasks in unfamiliar environments. Among many skills that the agents need to possess, building and maintaining a semantic map of the environment is most crucial in long-horizon tasks. A semantic map captures information about the environment in a structured way, allowing the agent to reference it for advanced reasoning throughout the task. While existing surveys in embodied AI focus on general advancements or specific tasks like navigation and manipulation, this paper provides a comprehensive review of semantic map-building approaches in embodied AI, specifically for indoor navigation. We categorize these approaches based on their structural representation (spatial grids, topological graphs, dense point-clouds or hybrid maps) and the type of information they encode (implicit features or explicit environmental data). We also explore the strengths and limitations of the map building techniques, highlight current challenges, and propose future research directions. We identify that the field is moving towards developing open-vocabulary, queryable, task-agnostic map representations, while high memory demands and computational inefficiency still remaining to be open challenges. This survey aims to guide current and future researchers in advancing semantic mapping techniques for embodied AI systems.

Replay builds an efficient cognitive map offline to avoid computation online

Preprint

Full-text available

Jan 2025

How do humans integrate fragmented experiences into a coherent structure for novel inferences? Although offline replay is proposed to reorganize memories, whether it constructs an integrated cognitive map remains unclear. Using magnetoencephalography, we tracked neural activity as participants learned one-dimensional, pairwise rank relationships that together formed a two-dimensional (2D) conceptual map, and then inferred unobserved relationships. Offline replay during rest integrated piecemeal memories into a 2D representation, predicting future inference accuracy. This offline replay and fast on-task replay during inference correlated with grid-cell-like code, representing a generalizable schema that minimized effortful online computations. In contrast, slow on-task replay focusing on trial-specific details, negatively correlated with grid-like codes and inference performance. Together, replay builds an efficient cognitive map offline, reducing reliance on deliberate computations online.

ŞEHİR HASTANELERİNİN UYARAN ORGANİZMA TEPKİ (S-O-R) MODELİ KAPSAMINDA ÇEVRESEL UYARICILARIN HASTA DAVRANIŞLARI ÜZERİNDEKİ ETKİSİ: ANKARA BİLKENT ŞEHİR HASTANESİ ÖRNEĞİ

Thesis

Full-text available

Jun 2023

Gamze Arıkan

En önemli sağlık kurumları olan hastaneler, toplumda sağlığın geliştirilmesinde önemli bir rol oynamaktadır. Türkiye'de hastane endüstrisinde, son yıllarda görülen en önemli gelişme entegre sağlık tesisi niteliğindeki şehir hastaneleri modelinin benimsenmesidir. Araştırmada, şehir hastanesinde yatan hastaların, hastanenin çevresel uyarıcılarını değerlendirerek hastanede kaldıkları süre boyunca, hissettikleri duygu tipolojileri ile hastaların hekimlerine güven düzeyleri arasındaki ilişki incelenerek, hasta davranışına yönelik içgörüler sağlamak amaçlanmıştır. Bu amaç doğrultusunda, Mehrabian ve Russell (1974) tarafından geliştirilen Uyaran-Organizma-Tepki (S-O-R) ve Memnuniyet-Harekete geçme- Egemenlik kurma (P-A-D) modelleri kapsamında hastaların davranışları üzerinde etkili olduğu düşünülen sağlık hizmet ortamının çevresel uyarıcıları, hastaların memnuniyet ve hekime güven düzeyleri ele alınmıştır. Bu faktörlerin, hastaların davranışsal niyet üzerindeki etkisinin belirlenmesi hedeflenmiştir. Bu bağlamda Ankara Bilkent Şehir Hastanesinde, Kadın Doğum ile Fizik Tedavi ve Rehabilitasyon Hastanelerinde yatarak sağlık hizmeti alan 404 hasta ile araştırma gerçekleştirilmiştir. Araştırmada elde edilen veriler frekans, yüzde dağılımları, açımlayıcı faktör analizi, doğrulayıcı faktör analizi, Pearson Korelasyon Analizi, bağımsız örneklem t-testi, ANOVA ve TUKEY testleri kullanılarak değerlendirilmiş ve yorumlanmıştır. Araştırma modelini test etmek amacıyla iki aşamalı yapısal eşitlik modeli kullanılmıştır. Araştırma sonuçlarına göre; hasta davranışı üzerinde memnuniyet duygusunun önemli bir etkisi bulunmaktadır. Aynı zamanda çevresel uyarıcıların, duygu tipolojisi, hekime güven ve davranışsal niyet; duygu tipolojisinin, hekime güven ve davranışsal niyet; hekime güvenin, davranışsal niyet üzerinde etkili olduğu saptanmıştır. Araştırma, şehir hastanesinin çevresel uyarıcılarını hastaların olumlu değerlendirdiğini ve memnuniyeti artırdığını, hekime güven düzeyinin yüksek olduğunu ve hastaların davranışsal niyetini pozitif yönde etkilediğini ampirik olarak doğrulamıştır. Memnuniyet ve hekime güven düzeyi, test edilen teorik çerçevede önemli aracı değişken olarak çalışmıştır. Şehir hastanelerinin çevresel uyarıcıları, hastaların davranışsal niyetini olumlu yönde artırmada önemli bir rol oynadığını kanıtlamıştır. Bununla birlikte, elde edilen sonuçlar doğrultusunda yöneticilere, politika yapıcılara ve karar vericilere yönelik birtakım öneriler geliştirilmiştir. Hospitals, which are the most important health institutions, play a significant role in the development of health in the society. The most important development in the hospital industry in Turkey in recent years is the adoption of the city hospitals model, which is an integrated health facility. In the study, it was aimed to provide insights into patient behavior by examining the relationship between the emotional typologies that the patients in the city hospital feel during their stay in the hospital and the level of trust in their physicians by evaluating the environmental stimuli of the hospital. For this purpose, environmental stimuli of the health care environment, which are thought to be effective on the behavior of patients within the scope of Stimulus-Organism-Response (S-O-R) and Pleasure-Arousal-Dominance (P-A-D) models developed by Mehrabian and Russell (1974), satisfaction of patients and trust in physicians levels have been addressed.It was aimed to determine the effect of these factors on the behavioral intention of the patients.It was aimed to determine the effect of these factors on the behavioral intention of the patients. In this context, the research was carried out with 404 patients who received health care services in Ankara Bilkent City Hospital, Gynecology and Physical Therapy and Rehabilitation Hospitals. The data obtained in the study were evaluated and interpreted using frequency, percentage distributions, exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, Pearson Correlation Analysis, independent sample t-test, ANOVA and TUKEY tests. A two-stage structural equation model was used to test the research model. According to the research results; pleasure has a significant effect on patient behavior. At the same time, environmental stimuli, emotion typology, trust in the physician and behavioral intention; emotion typology, trust in physician and behavioral intention; It was determined that trust in the physician was effective on behavioral intention. The research empirically confirmed that the environmental stimuli of the city hospital were positively evaluated by the patients and increased satisfaction, the level of trust in the physician was high, and they positively affected the behavioral intention of the patients. Pleasure and level of trust in the physician worked as important mediating variables in the tested theoretical framework. Environmental stimuli of city hospitals have proven to play an important role in positively increasing patients' behavioral intention. However, in line with the results obtained, some suggestions have been developed for managers, policy makers and decision makers.

Humans rationally balance detailed and temporally abstract world models

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025

How do people model the world’s dynamics to guide mental simulation and evaluate choices? One prominent approach, the Successor Representation (SR), takes advantage of temporal abstraction of future states: by aggregating trajectory predictions over multiple timesteps, the brain can avoid the costs of iterative, multi-step mental simulation. Human behavior broadly shows signatures of such temporal abstraction, but finer-grained characterization of individuals’ strategies and their dynamic adjustment remains an open question. We developed a task to measure SR usage during dynamic, trial-by-trial learning. Using this approach, we find that participants exhibit a mix of SR and model-based learning strategies that varies across individuals. Further, by dynamically manipulating the task contingencies within-subject to favor or disfavor temporal abstraction, we observe evidence of resource-rational reliance on the SR, which decreases when future states are less predictable. Our work adds to a growing body of research showing that the brain arbitrates between approximate decision strategies. The current study extends these ideas from simple habits into usage of more sophisticated approximate predictive models, and demonstrates that individuals dynamically adapt these in response to the predictability of their environment.

Sistem Memori dan Pembelajaran pada Mamalia

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Pembentukan memori pada mamalia melibatkan tahap yang kompleks, dari pembelajaran awal hingga penyimpanan jangka panjang. Ulasan ini menyoroti gen dan protein utama terkait memori seperti SYNGAP1, Arc/Arg3.1, BDNF, FOXP2, COMT, NR3C1, KIBRA, H-Ras, ERK1/2, dan gen lainnya. Mamalia menjadi model penting dalam penelitian memori karena kedekatan evolusioner mereka dengan manusia, memberikan wawasan tentang struktur otak seperti hipokampus dan korteks prefrontal yang penting dalam proses memori. Mekanisme molekuler seperti transkripsi, translasi, plastisitas sinaptik, LTP, dan LTD, serta neurotransmitter seperti glutamat, GABA, asetilkolin, dopamin, dan serotonin diuraikan dengan fokus pada mamalia kecil, besar, dan manusia. Neurotransmitter memengaruhi berbagai fungsi, termasuk emosi, pikiran, ingatan, pembelajaran, dan motorik hewan uji. Gangguan dalam homeostasis neurotransmitter telah dikaitkan dengan banyak gangguan neurologis dan neurodegeneratif sehingga perlu memahami mekanisme kompleks di balik memori pada mamalia. Tinjauan singkat tentang gen dan neurotransmitter yang terkait pada memori dan pembelajaran akan memberikan wawasan dan pertimbangan dalam penelitian dasar neurobiologi dan biomedis.

Methods of Investigating Spatial-Visual Cognition in Urban Environments: An Integrative Literature Review

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025

Investigating visual cognition is essential for understanding how individuals consciously view and respond to urban environments, facilitating the desired outcomes in urban design. This literature review explores various methods for studying spatial-visual cognition to uncover how individuals navigate, perceive, and engage with their surroundings. A systematic search was conducted across three databases-Egyptian Knowledge Bank, Google Scholar, and ResearchGate-to identify 31 relevant papers that met the inclusion criteria from an initial set of 1,000 articles. Drawing from these scholarly sources, the review analyzes different approaches to studying visual cognition, focusing on methods such as free recall, cued recall, and estimation tasks, each offering unique insights into cognitive processing. Additionally, the review examines mobile eye-tracking, a more recent and advanced method that provides real-time data on visual attention during navigation. By comparing these methods, the review emphasizes the value of employing multiple techniques simultaneously to gain a comprehensive understanding of spatial-visual cognition, which is vital for effective urban design and planning.

The dentate gyrus provides flexibility for efficient spatial navigation

Preprint

Dec 2024

The hippocampus plays a critical role in spatial navigation and declarative memory. The dentate gyrus is the neurogenic region of the hippocampal formation and it has long been implicated in the fine separation of similar contexts or close object locations. However, it is unclear how an accurate discrimination could be beneficial to a goal-guided behavior in a changing environment. Therefore, we used chemogenetic inhibition to study the role of the dentate gyrus in a goal-guided spatial navigation paradigm over a familiar but dynamic crossword maze. Mice were challenged to localize a novel reward location from alternative pathways in two versions of the task with particular configurations in each experimental day. In the simple task, the two optimal paths to the goal shared some segments in their trajectory. In a more complex task, optimal trajectories demanded completely different directions to the reward location. Overall, mice with chemogenetic inhibition of the dentate gyrus were able to learn all the routes regardless the complexity of the task, similarly to control animals. However, after having solved a first route in the complex task, mice with dentate gyrus inhibition displayed an impairment to efficiently navigate over the alternate path. Our results demonstrate a role of the dentate gyrus in cognitive flexibility required to reach a goal in a changing familiar environment.

Episodic Retrieval for Model-Based Evaluation in Sequential Decision Tasks

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

It has long been hypothesized that episodic memory supports adaptive decision making by enabling mental simulation of future events. Yet, attempts to characterize this process are surprisingly rare. On one hand, memory research is often carried out in settings that are far removed from ecological contexts of decision making. On the other hand, models of adaptive choice only invoke episodic memory in highly stylized terms, if at all. To address these gaps, we propose TCM-SR, a novel process-level model that grounds model-based evaluation in empirically informed dynamics of episodic recall. In this model, the probability of retrieving each available memory is governed by the successor representation, a biologically plausible world model in reinforcement learning. The evolution of these probabilities based on past retrievals, in turn, is dictated by the temporal context model, a prominent model of episodic retrieval. Through simulations and analytical derivations, we show that the patterns of episodic retrieval suggested by this model enables flexible computation of decision variables. On this basis, a number of previously described features of episodic memory might serve an adaptive purpose in sequential decision making. For instance, we show that the contiguity effect, a well-known bias in episodic retrieval, enables mental simulation via model-based rollouts to inform decisions. We also show that backward retrieval and emotional modulation improve generalization and the efficiency of decisions given limited experience. By bridging computational models across these two domains, we make several theoretical and empirical predictions linking episodic memory to adaptive choice in sequential tasks.

Comparison of numerosity concept in a freshwater turtle after a two-year retention interval

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024
BEHAV ECOL SOCIOBIOL

Cognition and memory ability is pivotal for animal survival and is believed to be particularly adaptive for long-lived species. Numerosity discrimination, crucial for resource management and social interactions, provides a quantitative framework that allows us to compare the performance and the recovery of previously established concepts after a long-term retention interval. In this research, we investigated the capacity of freshwater turtles to remember the experimental process and gradually recall the abstract concept of “greater than”. Five striped-necked turtles (Mauremys sinensis), trained in 2019 to discriminate between quantities represented by red cubes, were retested after a two-year retention interval with no exposure to stimuli or human interaction. Three turtles remembered the training process to acquire food rewards from the stimuli within the first day of testing. However, regaining the concept of “greater than” required more time: one turtle reached 68% accuracy (P = 0.0669) on Day 1, another achieved 77% (P = 0.0085) on Day 2, and a third reached 82% (P = 0.0022) on Day 3. The latter two individuals retained this high accuracy until the end of the experiment. As the study continued, memory recall for each subject improved with greater efficiency than two years prior. Our study confirms that freshwater turtles retain long-term memory of abstract concepts learned two years earlier and reveals significant individual heterogeneity in their recall and decision-making processes. These findings underscore the need for more comprehensive research into the factors shaping animal cognition and behavior, particularly in understanding the ecological and evolutionary pressures that influence memory retention, individual variability, and decision-making strategies. Significance statement This study provides compelling evidence that freshwater turtles possess the ability to retain and recall abstract cognitive concepts over extended periods without reinforcement, highlighting their advanced cognitive capacities. By demonstrating that striped-necked turtles (Mauremys sinensis) can remember training and discriminate based on the concept of "greater than" after a two-year hiatus, our research not only challenges existing assumptions about reptilian memory capabilities but also enriches our understanding of cognitive evolution in long-lived species. The found individual differences in memory recall and decision-making underscore the complexity of animal cognition and highlight the significance of individual variability in behavioral studies. These insights contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms that support long-term memory in animals.

The Detection of Automatic Behavior in Other People

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

The standard model of theory of mind posits that we attribute mental states to other people to explain their behavior. However, what of cases in which we think the other person is being scripted, acting automatically with no goals or beliefs to recover? While a great deal of past work has distinguished between automatic and reflective behaviors in one’s own decision making, here we argue that reasoning about automatic behavior in other people is an important and largely unexplored area in research into theory of mind. We report results from two studies (N = 4,528 total) that examine the detection of automatic behavior in others. In Study 1, we conducted a large-scale survey characterizing the ubiquity of rote interactions in people’s daily lives. In Study 2, we showed participants short video clips from a variety of domains and found that people quickly and reliably attribute automaticity to others and that automaticity judgments are distinct from other related behavioral attributions. On the basis of our findings, we suggest that reasoning about scripted behavior in others is an important, frequent, intuitive inference and propose extensions to the current research in intuitive psychology to study it further.

What is a theory of neural representation for?

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024
SYNTHESE

Andrew Richmond

This paper asks how representational notions figure into cognitive science, especially neuroscience. Philosophers have a way of skipping over that question and going straight to another: what is neural representation? What is the property or relation that representational notions pick out? I argue that this is a mistake. Our ultimate questions, as philosophers of cognitive science, are about the function and epistemology of cognitive scientific explanations—in this case, explanations that use representational notions. To answer those questions we must understand what representational notions contribute to science: what they enable scientists to do or explain, and how. But I show that we can do this without raising traditional and vexing questions about the definition of neural representation, or the nature of a property or relation that notion picks out. Taking this approach, I defend a realist account of representational explanation that underwrites important connections between philosophy and neuroscience.

Topological schemas of cognitive maps and spatial learning in the hippocampus

Preprint

Sep 2015

Spatial navigation in mammals is based on building a mental representation of their environment---a cognitive map. However, both the nature of this cognitive map and its underpinning in neural structures and activity remains vague. A key difficulty is that these maps are collective, emergent phenomena that cannot be reduced to a simple combination of inputs provided by individual neurons. In this paper we suggest computational frameworks for integrating the spiking signals of individual cells into a spatial map, which we call schemas. We provide examples of four schemas defined by different types of topological relations that may be neurophysiologically encoded in the brain and demonstrate that each schema provides its own large-scale characteristics of the environment---the schema integrals. Moreover, we find that, in all cases, these integrals are learned at a rate which is faster than the rate of complete training of neural networks. Thus, the proposed schema framework differentiates between the cognitive aspect of spatial learning and the physiological aspect at the neural network level.

Cognitive Mapping and Planning for Visual Navigation

Preprint

Feb 2017

We introduce a neural architecture for navigation in novel environments. Our proposed architecture learns to map from first-person views and plans a sequence of actions towards goals in the environment. The Cognitive Mapper and Planner (CMP) is based on two key ideas: a) a unified joint architecture for mapping and planning, such that the mapping is driven by the needs of the task, and b) a spatial memory with the ability to plan given an incomplete set of observations about the world. CMP constructs a top-down belief map of the world and applies a differentiable neural net planner to produce the next action at each time step. The accumulated belief of the world enables the agent to track visited regions of the environment. We train and test CMP on navigation problems in simulation environments derived from scans of real world buildings. Our experiments demonstrate that CMP outperforms alternate learning-based architectures, as well as, classical mapping and path planning approaches in many cases. Furthermore, it naturally extends to semantically specified goals, such as 'going to a chair'. We also deploy CMP on physical robots in indoor environments, where it achieves reasonable performance, even though it is trained entirely in simulation.

Pharos: improving navigation instructions on smartwatches by including global landmarks

Preprint

Apr 2019

Landmark-based navigation systems have proven benefits relative to traditional turn-by-turn systems that use street names and distances. However, one obstacle to the implementation of landmark-based navigation systems is the complex challenge of selecting salient local landmarks at each decision point for each user. In this paper, we present Pharos, a novel system that extends turn-by-turn navigation instructions using a single global landmark (e.g. the Eiffel Tower, the Burj Khalifa, municipal TV towers) rather than multiple, hard-to-select local landmarks. We first show that our approach is feasible in a large number of cities around the world through the use of computer vision to select global landmarks. We then present the results of a study demonstrating that by including global landmarks in navigation instructions, users navigate more confidently and build a more accurate mental map of the navigated area than using turn-by-turn instructions.

Separable cognitive and motor decline tracked across adult life-span for goal-directed navigation

Preprint

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Spatial navigation is a fundamental cognitive skill, yet our understanding of the strategies people employ in real-world navigation remains incomplete. This study investigates navigation strategies using data from the large-scale Sea Hero Quest (SHQ) game, in which participants face navigational problems consisting in controlling a boat to reach a series of goal locations, within maps having different shapes. By using a combination of behavioral and computational modeling approaches, we report three key findings: First, participants predominantly use goal-directed strategies compared to visibility-based strategies. Second, participants show signatures of sequential planning, both during memorization -- as they spend more time looking at difficult levels -- and during navigation -- as they show primacy effects, suggesting that they remember better the first navigational goal. Third, our results show a significant age-related decline in navigation performance, which depends both on reduced motor skill -- as indexed by poorer control of the boat -- and decreased cognitive strategy -- as indexed by a loss of goal-directedness during spatial navigation. Unexpectedly, the loss of goal-directedness with age is not associated with a shift to visibility-based strategy or to an incorrect sequencing of goals. Taken together, our findings offer a nuanced understanding of spatial navigation strategies in naturalistic conditions and their decline with age. Our computational approach permits distinguishing motoric and cognitive variables, showing that both decline with age. These results align with and extent previous research on spatial memory decline with age, including potential links to neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. The computational models developed in this study provide a robust framework for analyzing navigation strategies, applicable to other virtual environments and video games.

Psychological Aspects of Human Perception of the Urban Environment in the Context of Sustainable Development

Article

Jan 2025

Alyona Gladysheva

The aim of this study is to examine the theoretical concepts of research on the formation of urban environment perception psychology. The study employs an interdisciplinary approach that combines theoretical developments in environmental psychology, urban psychology, architectural psychology, and urban studies. The primary research methods include the analysis and systematization of scientific literature, comparative analysis, and synthesis. The study demonstrates the relationship between urban environment characteristics, psychological mechanisms of human adaptation to these characteristics, and the level of psychological well-being of urban residents. The article provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of various urban environment factors on human psyche and offers practical recommendations for applying knowledge about the peculiarities of human spatial perception to create a more comfortable and psychologically favorable urban environment. The research results can be used to develop theoretical concepts on the interaction between humans and the urban environment, particularly to refine and develop the concept of psychological resilience and adaptation in urbanization conditions, as well as to develop new methods and approaches to studying urban space perception. Conclusions are drawn that human perception of the urban environment is complex and multifactorial, determined by both the objective characteristics of the city and the individual psychological characteristics of the person. Furthermore, there is a need to develop new approaches to urban environment design and development, based on considering human psychological needs and aimed at improving their well-being.

Leveraging psychology and neuroscience for geospatial cognition research

Article

Jan 2025

Urban Park Planning for Sustainability: Resident Insights from China’s Major Cities

Article

Full-text available

Jan 2025

Urban parks are pivotal in the sustainable development of urban ecosystems, significantly enhancing the ecological environment and residents’ quality of life. To scientifically improve urban park management and ensure long-term sustainability, this study aims to establish a framework for understanding and predicting residents’ spatial perceptions in urban parks. Overcoming the constraints of traditional empirical research, this study conducted a questionnaire survey involving 701 residents from Beijing Chaoyang Park, Shanghai Century Park, and Guangzhou Yuexiu Park from May to July 2024. By combining the semantic differential (SD) method, importance–performance analysis (IPA), and cognitive map methods, the study holistically assessed residents’ spatial perceptions and their variations in urban parks. The SD analysis highlighted perceptional differences in the three urban parks, revealing the needs for tailored planning considering personal characteristics and geographical location, which is essential for enhancing park services and overall satisfaction. Comparative analysis showed significant variations in the preferences in different resident groups, with Chaoyang Park facing a sense of deprivation due to weaker natural features, suggesting the critical role of natural elements in park design, while Century and Yuexiu Parks were highly valued for aligning park design with local needs and preferences. Cognitive maps reveal residents’ spatial perception of urban parks, particularly their significant differences in familiarity with the natural and social functions, artificial landscapes, and internal attractions of parks, which informs the integration of design elements that cater to varying preferences and foster a stronger sense of place. This study confirms the effectiveness of combining traditional methods with spatial perception analysis for quantitatively evaluating residents’ spatial perception, and provides useful references for the sustainable planning and management of urban parks.

Schemas, reinforcement learning and the medial prefrontal cortex

Article

Jan 2025

A geography of early vulnerabilities and exploitation in the narratives of adolescent males in England

Article

Oct 2024

Sally-Ann Ashton

Purpose The victimisation and criminal involvement of young people in organised criminal groups is a recognised form of child criminal exploitation (CCE) in the UK. Three phases of exploitation were identified (peer influence, adult street-level gangs and organised criminal groups). This paper aims to consider the locations associated with three stages of criminal exploitation and considers implications for safeguarding. Design/methodology/approach The research uses narratives of adolescent males and those of adults reflecting on their experiences as adolescents who had been immersed in street gangs and organised crime from northern England. Method Narratives of criminal action approach, a thematic analysis and multidimensional scaling (smallest space analysis) were undertaken to explore key locations in the planning and commissioning of a crime with at least one other person. Findings The narratives revealed that local and regional geographic locations relate to the stages of CCE. They offer an insight into the process of CCE and identify locations that could be used as a risk indicator for police forces and safeguarding teams. A clear pathway from involvement with street-level gangs to direct contact with organised criminal groups was found. This transition was represented by a move from outdoor to indoor locations. Research limitations/implications Out of the 30 participants, 29 came from the same region in Northern England, spanning a period of 30 years. It is possible that the findings may be limited to this region, or that there have been changes to criminal structures and opportunities over this time. Originality/value Although drug selling and the movement of victims across the UK is central to CCE, comparatively little attention has been given to the locations where early exploitation takes place at a micro level. Practical implications for policing and safeguarding will be discussed.

Cognitive space mapping and its neural mechanisms

Article

Jan 2025

Practical Ethics in a Visual Age: Ontology, Methodology, and a Duty of Care

Chapter

Jan 2024

Johannes Wheeldon

Using visual artifacts to collect, analyze, and present data is of growing interest. Distinctive ethical questions have emerged in recent years that oblige researchers to consider additional responsibilities when reproducing images of others or creating their own. This chapter seeks to organize some ethical issues associated with visual scholarship. I begin by revisiting the use of different kinds of images in the social sciences and reconsider the role of ethics in social science research based on emergent critiques. I apply these by considering the challenges associated with integrating ethics within visual research, including ontological questions, epistemological issues, and methodological concerns. Building on previous work, I conclude by considering a “duty of care” in visual research and assessing some implications for participants, communities, and researchers.

Ordu İli Turizm Alanlarının Zihin Haritalama Yöntemi ile Değerlendirilmesi ve Deneyimle Değişen Turizm Alanı Algısının İncelenmesi

Article

Sep 2024

Turizm, dünya genelinde ekonomik, kültürel ve sosyal etkileriyle önemli bir endüstri olarak kabul edilmektedir. Turizm sektörü, birçok ülke ve kent için ekonomik büyüme ve istihdam yaratma potansiyeline sahip olup, kentsel dönüşümü ve yerel kültürlerin korunmasını da desteklemektedir. Türkiye'nin Karadeniz bölgesinde yer alan Ordu ili, doğal güzellikleri, tarihi zenginlikleri ve kültürel mirasıyla turizm potansiyeli yüksek bir şehir olarak öne çıkmaktadır. Ordu'nun sahip olduğu eşsiz doğal ve tarihi zenginlikler, turistler için çekici bir destinasyon oluşturmakta ve kentin ekonomik gelişimine katkı sağlamaktadır. Bu çalışmada, Ordu ilinin turizm alanlarını zihin haritalama yöntemi ile incelenmiş, kentin deneyimle değişen turizm alanı algısı ve değişimi ele alınmış, ayrıca bireylerin zihinlerinde Lynch'in (1960) ortaya koyduğu temel kentsel imge çeşitlerinin hangi önceliklerle şekillendiği değerlendirilmiştir. Ordu'nun turizm alanlarının bireylerin görsel belleklerinde kalıcılığından yola çıkarak bu alanların nasıl daha etkili bir turizm alanı haline gelerek geliştirilebileceği konusunda önerilerde bulunulmuştur.

An experimental framework for conjoint measures of olfaction, navigation, and motion as pre-clinical biomarkers of Alzheimer's disease

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024

Elucidating Alzheimer's disease (AD) prodromal symptoms can resolve the outstanding challenge of early diagnosis. Based on intrinsically related substrates of olfaction and spatial navigation, we propose a novel experimental framework for their conjoint study. Artificial intelligence-driven multimodal study combining self-collected olfactory and motion data with available big clinical datasets can potentially promote high-precision early clinical screenings to facilitate timely interventions targeting neurodegenerative progression.

Older Adults’ Disorientation in Smartphones: Exploring the Role of Spatial Ability and Quantifying Cognitive Similarity Between Perceived and Physical Information Structure

Article

Dec 2024
INT J HUM-COMPUT INT

Advances in neural information detection sensors for spatial cognition research: A review

Article

Dec 2024

Mental Time Travel: A Retrospective

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024
HIPPOCAMPUS

A. David Redish

Because imagination activates the same neural circuits used in understanding the present, one can access that imagination even in non‐linguistic animals through decoding techniques applied to large neural ensembles. This personal retrospective traces the history of the initial discovery that hippocampal theta sequences sweep forward to goals during moments of deliberation and discusses the history that was necessary to put ourselves in the position to recognize this signal. It also discusses how that discovery fits into the larger picture of hippocampal function and the concept of cognition as computation.

From British Associationism to the Hippocampal Cognitive Map: A Personal View From a Ringside Seat at the Cognitive/ PDP Revolution

Article

Dec 2024
HIPPOCAMPUS

Patricia E. Sharp

The mandate for this special issue of Hippocampus was to provide a few examples of one's own work in a relatively personal context. Accordingly, I will discuss some of my own work here, but will also provide a broader arc of ideas and discoveries within which the efforts of myself and many others have taken place. This history begins with the associationists, who proposed that the human mind could be understood, in part, as a compounding of simple associations between contiguously occurring items and events. This idea was taken up by the behaviorist traditions, which made significant progress toward refining this simple idea. Subsequently, as interest turned toward neural mechanisms, Donald Hebb provided a foundational proposal for how synaptic changes could provide for this associative learning. The associationist view was, however, challenged by gestaltists who took a more wholistic, cognitive approach. Stunning support was provided for Tolman's cognitive map idea with the discovery of place cells in the hippocampus, and the subsequent treatise provided in O'Keefe and Nadel's The Hippocampus as a Cognitive Map . I propose that, ultimately, this associationist versus cognitive debate was settled by the development of the Parallel Distributed Processing (PDP) approach, which incorporated Hebbian synapses into large, neural‐like networks, which could accomplish complex cognitive tasks. My own work took place within the framework provided by O'Keefe and Nadel. One aspect of my work followed Jim Ranck's discovery of Head Direction cells. Tad Blair and others in my lab traced a brainstem circuit, which we proposed could explain the origins of the directional code. In other work, I investigated cells in the subicular region. These provided a contrast to the hippocampal place cells in that each subicular cell kept the same spatial pattern across different environments, whereas the hippocampal cells formed a different map for each context.

Squid Game’s Arenas: Maze, Labyrinth, and the Violent Structures of Capitalism

Chapter

Dec 2024

Loraine Haywood

Squid Game as a series moves beyond the binary of utopia and dystopia in depicting its labyrinthine journey into the capitalist underworld. Viewers are confronted by these structures of suffering, toil, and inextricability, with death at its center. The episodes attest to the human fascination with mazes, labyrinths, theaters, sacrifice, and arenas both ancient and modern, where bloodletting and violence are performed in structures of confinement. The bloody action takes place on an island in an arena that has a maze; it is a structure built for the same purpose as the Labyrinth of Crete and is a slaughterhouse that hides illicit desires. The arena on the island is an attempt to contain the idea that capitalism produces utopia, because all have, according to the game runners, “equality, and opportunity, without discrimination.” The arena is an amplifier revealing the careless sacrifices of human bodies in neoliberal and consumer capitalism.

Unsupervised aspect-based summarization using variational autoencoders

Article

Dec 2024
EXPERT SYST APPL

Introduction to Design Psychology

Book

Dec 2024

Eleni Kalantidou

Meta-prediction extends human cortical and subcortical reward learning

Preprint

Dec 2024

Human reward learning is constrained by environmental structure. Stable environments facilitate reward prediction but limit learning experiences[1-8], while uncertain environments hinder predictability and learnability[9-12]. We propose a novel framework extending these boundaries through "meta-prediction" - predicting human prediction. The meta-prediction entwines two Bellman equations: one for human prediction and the other for predicting the prediction error of the former. The framework pretrains computational models imitating individuals' reward prediction (specification), then generates new tasks to extremize the models' prediction errors (generalization). Simulations with 82 subjects' data generated subject-independent task design across four scenarios without compromising learnability. In an independent fMRI experiment with 49 participants, meta-prediction guides behavior and neural activities in the ventral striatum, lateral prefrontal, and insular cortex, the areas encoding prediction errors. We also demonstrated that meta-prediction can generate complex tasks compositionally to discern human reward learning bias. Our framework redefines the role of tasks in cognitive science and AI.

Learning Temporal Relationships Between Symbols with Laplace Neural Manifolds

Article

Dec 2024

Firing across populations of neurons in many regions of the mammalian brain maintains a temporal memory, a neural timeline of the recent past. Behavioral results demonstrate that people can both remember the past and anticipate the future over an analogous internal timeline. This paper presents a mathematical framework for building this timeline of the future. We assume that the input to the system is a time series of symbols—sparse tokenized representations of the present—in continuous time. The goal is to record pairwise temporal relationships between symbols over a wide range of time scales. We assume that the brain has access to a temporal memory in the form of the real Laplace transform. Hebbian associations with a diversity of synaptic time scales are formed between the past timeline and the present symbol. The associative memory stores the convolution between the past and the present. Knowing the temporal relationship between the past and the present allows one to infer relationships between the present and the future. With appropriate normalization, this Hebbian associative matrix can store a Laplace successor representation and a Laplace predecessor representation from which measures of temporal contingency can be evaluated. The diversity of synaptic time constants allows for the learning of non-stationary statistics as well as joint statistics between triplets of symbols. This framework synthesizes a number of recent neuroscientific findings including results from dopamine neurons in the mesolimbic forebrain.

Probabilistic qualitative spatial reasoning with applications to GeoQA

Article

Full-text available

Dec 2024
INT J GEOGR INF SCI

This paper explores the use of probabilistic and conventional qualitative spatial reasoning (QSR) in the context of geospatial question answering (GeoQA) systems. The paper presents a thorough empirical investigation of the performance of a probabilistic and a conventional qualitative spatial reasoner, across a range increasingly sophisticated scenarios with real data and synthetically generated questions. The results indicate the potential of probabilistic QSR to provide more detailed information about spatial configurations than conventional QSR; but at the cost of less frequent errors in estimating the relative likelihood of different reasoning conclusions. Errors in probabilistic reasoning also tend to be systematically associated with lower probability conclusions. The results have implications for reliable and flexible automated spatial reasoning systems, especially where neither conventional geographic information retrieval (GIR) techniques nor large language models (LLMs) are able to provide a satisfactory solution to GeoQA problems.

Cognitive Maps in Rats and Men

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