by Keyword: foraging
Low, SC, Vouloutsi, V, Verschure, PFMJ, (2021). Complementary interactions between classical and top-down driven inhibitory mechanisms of attention Cognitive Systems Research 67, 66-72 
© 2020 The Authors Selective attention informs decision-making by biasing perceptual processing towards task-relevant stimuli. In experimental and computational literature, this is most often implemented through top-down excitation of selected stimuli. However, physiological and anatomical evidence shows that in certain situations, top-down signals could instead be inhibitory. In this study, we investigated how such an inhibitory mechanism of top-down attention compares with an excitatory one. We did so in a neurorobotics context where the agent was controlled using an established hierarchical architecture. We augmented the architecture with an attentional system that implemented top-down attention biasing as connection gains. We tested four models of top-down attention on the simulated agent performing a foraging task: without top-down biasing, with only excitatory top-down gain, with only inhibitory top-down gain, and with both excitatory and inhibitory top-down gain. We manipulated the reward-distractor ratio that was presented and assessed the agent's performance using accumulated rewards and the latency of the selection. Using these measures, we provide evidence that excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms of attention complement each other.
JTD Keywords: embodied cognition, foraging, inhibition, Embodied cognition, Foraging, Inhibition, Selective attention
Verschure, P., (2018). A chronology of Distributed Adaptive Control 
Living machines: A handbook of research in biomimetics and biohybrid systems (ed. Prescott, T. J., Lepora, Nathan, Verschure, P.), Oxford Scholarship (Oxford, UK) , 346-360
This chapter presents the Distributed Adaptive Control (DAC) theory of the mind and brain of living machines. DAC provides an explanatory framework for biological brains and an integration framework for synthetic ones. DAC builds on several themes presented in the handbook: it integrates different perspectives on mind and brain, exemplifies the synthetic method in understanding living machines, answers well-defined constraints faced by living machines, and provides a route for the convergent validation of anatomy, physiology, and behavior in our explanation of biological living machines. DAC addresses the fundamental question of how a living machine can obtain, retain, and express valid knowledge of its world. We look at the core components of DAC, specific benchmarks derived from the engagement with the physical and the social world (the H4W and the H5W problems) in foraging and human–robot interaction tasks. Lastly we address how DAC targets the UTEM benchmark and the relation with contemporary developments in AI.
JTD Keywords: Distributed Adaptive Control, Problem of priors, Symbol grounding problem, Convergent validation, Foraging, brain, Architecture, system
