Optimal decision-making in mammals: insights from a robot study of rodent texture discrimination
Optimal decision-making in mammals: insights from a robot study of rodent texture discrimination
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哺乳动物的最佳决策：来自啮齿动物纹理辨别的机器人研究的见解
DOI：
10.1098/rsif.2011.0750
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发表时间：
2012
影响因子：
3.9
通讯作者：
T. Prescott
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
N. Lepora;C. Fox;Mathew H. Evans;M. Diamond;K. Gurney;T. Prescott
本文研究了一个由配备仿生振动传感器的机器人组成的大鼠须系统的物理模型的纹理感知。对啮齿类动物须运动的研究已经为纹理区分提供了几种解释，如共振或粘滑。与此同时，对猴子决策的电生理研究提出了一种证据积累到竞争感知阈值的神经机制，该机制由贝叶斯序列分析的概率模型描述。对于我们的机器人须数据，我们发现采用序列分析的变反应时间决策优于固定反应时间的最大似然估计。这些概率分类器也使用任何可用的特征来帮助识别，提供比单特征策略更好的性能，例如匹配晶须振动的峰值功率谱。这些结果揭示了啮齿类动物的各种纹理区分是如何依赖于触须接触机制的，并提出了哺乳动物物种决策的共同解释的可能性。
Texture perception is studied here in a physical model of the rat whisker system consisting of a robot equipped with a biomimetic vibrissal sensor. Investigations of whisker motion in rodents have led to several explanations for texture discrimination, such as resonance or stick-slips. Meanwhile, electrophysiological studies of decision-making in monkeys have suggested a neural mechanism of evidence accumulation to threshold for competing percepts, described by a probabilistic model of Bayesian sequential analysis. For our robot whisker data, we find that variable reaction-time decision-making with sequential analysis performs better than the fixed response-time maximum-likelihood estimation. These probabilistic classifiers also use whatever available features of the whisker signals aid the discrimination, giving improved performance over a single-feature strategy, such as matching the peak power spectra of whisker vibrations. These results cast new light on how the various proposals for texture discrimination in rodents depend on the whisker contact mechanics and suggest the possibility of a common account of decision-making across mammalian species.