Active inference through whiskers
Active inference through whiskers
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DOI：
10.1016/j.neunet.2021.08.037
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发表时间：
2021-09-23
期刊：
影响因子：
7.8
通讯作者：
Pezzulo, Giovanni
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Mannella, Francesco;Maggiore, Federico;Pezzulo, Giovanni
啮齿类动物利用振动来主动探测它们的环境，并在空间中定位物体，因此提供了主动感知的典型生物学例子。大量研究表明，搅拌过程的控制具有预见性。例如，啮齿动物的须长与它们预期物体的距离一致，而不是仅仅对接触到意外物体做出快速反应。在这里，我们表征预期控制在啮齿动物的拂动作为一个积极的推理过程。从这个角度来看，啮齿动物被赋予了一种先验信念，即它会在须状物伸长的最后触摸到某物，并且它会不断调节其须状物的振幅，以最小化因意想不到的须状物接触或缺乏预期接触而引起的（本体感觉和体感）预测误差。我们将使用该模型定性地再现啮齿动物在探索和扫描（预期或意外）物体时调节其须振幅的方式的关键经验发现。此外，我们将讨论主动推理模型的组成部分如何在原则上映射到啮齿动物的神经生物学回路。(C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd版权所有。
Rodents use whisking to probe actively their environment and to locate objects in space, hence providing a paradigmatic biological example of active sensing. Numerous studies show that the control of whisking has anticipatory aspects. For example, rodents target their whisker protraction to the distance at which they expect objects, rather than just reacting fast to contacts with unexpected objects. Here we characterize the anticipatory control of whisking in rodents as an active inference process. In this perspective, the rodent is endowed with a prior belief that it will touch something at the end of the whisker protraction, and it continuously modulates its whisking amplitude to minimize (proprioceptive and somatosensory) prediction errors arising from an unexpected whisker-object contact, or from a lack of an expected contact. We will use the model to qualitatively reproduce key empirical findings about the ways rodents modulate their whisker amplitude during exploration and the scanning of (expected or unexpected) objects. Furthermore, we will discuss how the components of active inference model can in principle map to the neurobiological circuits of rodent whisking. (C) 2021 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.