Abstract
Sensory stimuli endow animals with the ability to generate an internal representation. This representation can be maintained for a certain duration in the absence of previously elicited inputs. The reliance on an internal representation rather than purely on the basis of external stimuli is a hallmark feature of higher-order functions such as working memory. Patterns of neural activity produced in response to sensory inputs can continue long after the disappearance of previous inputs. Experimental and theoretical studies have largely invested in understanding how animals faithfully maintain sensory representations during ongoing reverberations of neural activity. However, these studies have focused on preassigned protocols of stimulus presentation, leaving out by default the possibility of exploring how the content of working memory interacts with ongoing input streams. Here, we study working memory using a network of spiking neurons with dynamic synapses subject to short-term and long-term synaptic plasticity. The formal model is embodied in a physical robot as a companion approach under which neuronal activity is directly linked to motor output. The artificial agent is used as a methodological tool for studying the formation of working memory capacity. To this end, we devise a keyboard listening framework to delineate the context under which working memory content is (1) refined, (2) overwritten or (3) resisted by ongoing new input streams. Ultimately, this study takes a neurorobotic perspective to resurface the long-standing implication of working memory in flexible cognition.
Highlights
Animals are capable of relying on internal sensory representations rather than purely on the basis of external stimuli
We report the results of six Robotic experiments
Working memory during input streams the inclusion of short-term depression can widen the range of stable ongoing neural and synaptic dynamics, ensuring online learning is kept under control
Summary
Animals are capable of relying on internal sensory representations rather than purely on the basis of external stimuli. Experimental studies on WM in primate neurophysiology have shown that patterns of neural activity can reverberate following the offset of sensory inputs [4, 7]. These ongoing reverberations can persist over a period of several seconds [1, 5,6,7,8], a time segment during which neuronal responses remain preferentially elevated for a target stimulus [9,10,11]. Despite having shown to be correlated with psychophysical performance [7], mechanisms underlying intrinsic dynamics of self-sustained activity remain elusive.
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