A free-energy principle has been proposed recently that accounts for action, perception and learning. This Review looks at some key brain theories in the biological (for example, neural Darwinism) and physical (for example, information theory and optimal control theory) sciences from the free-energy perspective. Crucially, one key theme runs through each of these theories — optimization. Furthermore, if we look closely at what is optimized, the same quantity keeps emerging, namely value (expected reward, expected utility) or its complement, surprise (prediction error, expected cost). This is the quantity that is optimized under the free-energy principle, which suggests that several global brain theories might be unified within a free-energy framework.

/pdf/the-free-energy-principle-a-unified-brain-theory-3vz1twg7nv.pdf

The free-energy principle: a unified brain theory?

Brains, it has recently been argued, are essentially prediction machines. They are bundles of cells that support perception and action by constantly attempting to match incoming sensory inputs with top-down expectations or predictions. This is achieved using a hierarchical generative model that aims to minimize prediction error within a bidirectional cascade of cortical processing. Such accounts offer a unifying model of perception and action, illuminate the functional role of attention, and may neatly capture the special contribution of cortical processing to adaptive success. This target article critically examines this "hierarchical prediction machine" approach, concluding that it offers the best clue yet to the shape of a unified science of mind and action. Sections 1 and 2 lay out the key elements and implications of the approach. Section 3 explores a variety of pitfalls and challenges, spanning the evidential, the methodological, and the more properly conceptual. The paper ends (sections 4 and 5) by asking how such approaches might impact our more general vision of mind, experience, and agency.

/pdf/whatever-next-predictive-brains-situated-agents-and-the-epj56cs868.pdf

Whatever next? Predictive brains, situated agents, and the future of cognitive science

The organization of behavior: A neuropsychological theory

Continual lifelong learning with neural networks: A review.

Matrix Factorization Techniques for Recommender Systems

Two developmental disorders, autism and Williams syndrome, are both commonly described as having difficulties in integrating perceptual features, i.e. binding spatially separate elements into a whole. It is already known that healthy adults and infants display electroencephalographic (EEG) gamma-band bursts (around 40 Hz) when the brain is required to achieve such binding. Here we explore gamma-band EEG in autism and Williams Syndrome and demonstrate differential abnormalities in the two phenotypes. We show that despite putative processing similarities at the cognitive level, binding in Williams syndrome and autism can be dissociated at the neurophysiological level by different abnormalities in underlying brain oscillatory activity. Our study is the first to identify that binding-related gamma EEG can be disordered in humans.

http://www.biac.duke.edu/education/courses/spring03/cogdev/readings/S.%20Grice%20et%20al%20(2001).pdf

Disordered visual processing and oscillatory brain activity in autism and Williams syndrome.

A review of predictive coding algorithms.

An enduring controversy in neuroscience concerns how the brain "binds" together separately coded stimulus features to form unitary representations of objects Recent evidence has indicated a close link between this binding process and 40-hertz (gamma-band) oscillations generated by localized neural circuits In a separate line of research, the ability of young infants to perceive objects as unitary and bounded has become a central focus for debates about the mechanisms of perceptual development Here we demonstrate that binding-related 40-hertz oscillations are evident in the infant brain around 8 months of age, which is the same age at which behavioral and event-related potential evidence indicates the onset of perceptual binding of spatially separated static visual features

http://science.sciencemag.org/content/sci/290/5496/1582.full.pdf

Gamma oscillations and object processing in the infant brain.

Book synopsis: What are the processes, from conception to adulthood, that enable a single cell to grow into a sentient adult? The processes that occur along the way are so complex that any attempt to understand development necessitates a multi-disciplinary approach, integrating data from cognitive studies, computational work, and neuroimaging - an approach till now seldom taken in the study of child development.

Neuroconstructivism is a major new 2 volume publication that seeks to redress this balance, presenting an integrative new framework for considering development. In the first volume, the authors review up-to-to date findings from neurobiology, brain imaging, child development, computer and robotic modelling to consider why children's thinking develops the way it does. They propose a new synthesis of development that is based on 5 key principles found to operate at many levels of descriptions. They use these principles to explain what causes a number of key developmental phenomena, including infants' interacting with objects, early social cognitive interactions, and the causes of dyslexia. The "neuroconstructivist" framework also shows how developmental disorders do not arise from selective damage to the normal cognitive system, but instead arise from atypical constraints. How these principles work is illustrated in several case studies ranging from perceptual to social and reading development. Finally, the authors use neuroimaging, behavioural analyses, computational simulations and robotic models to provide a way of understanding the mechanisms and processes that cause development to occur.

Michael W. Spratling

Papers

Disordered visual processing and oscillatory brain activity in autism and Williams syndrome.

A review of predictive coding algorithms.

Gamma oscillations and object processing in the infant brain.

Neuroconstructivism - I: How the Brain Constructs Cognition

Predictive coding as a model of biased competition in visual attention.