Abstract
We develop a normative statistical approach to exploratory behavior called information foraging. Information foraging highlights the specific processes that contribute to active, rather than passive, exploration and learning. We hypothesize that the hippocampus plays a critical role in active exploration through directed information foraging by supporting a set of processes that allow an individual to determine where to sample. By examining these processes, we show how information directed information foraging provides a formal theoretical explanation for the common hippocampal substrates of constructive memory, vicarious trial and error behavior, schema-based facilitation of memory performance, and memory consolidation.
Highlights
Humans and non-human animals are naturally curious and spontaneously explore (Tolman, 1954; Berlyne et al, 1966; Loewenstein, 1994)
Directed information foraging is characterized by a where to go decision process based on expected sampling information and depends on the hippocampus
MEMORY EXPLORATION The previous discussion has shown how directed information foraging can be extended to generative memory dynamics in the hippocampus
Summary
Humans and non-human animals are naturally curious and spontaneously explore (Tolman, 1954; Berlyne et al, 1966; Loewenstein, 1994). The first set of exploratory activities we discuss are experimentally observable behavioral dynamics In these cases, exploration refers to a behavioral sampling procedure that an animal uses to investigate its environment. The second set of exploratory activities we discuss are representational dynamics that allow an animal to explore previous experience or the inferences available from previous experience In these cases, exploration refers to a memory-based sampling procedure that an animal uses to investigate a single representation or switch between different representations. We review recent findings from the rodent and place cell literatures that show animals engage in directed information foraging and maintain dynamic neural representations in the hippocampus that support exploration through a generative memory process similar to mental imagery
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