Event Abstract Back to Event Modeling working memory and learning in solving the towers of Hanoi test Gülay Büyükaksoy-Kaplan1*, N. Sengör2 and H. Gürvit3 1 TUBITAK Marmara Research Center, Türkiye 2 Istanbul Technical University , Türkiye 3 İstanbul Üniversitesi, Türkiye In clinical neurology, Towers of Hanoi test is used to evaluate the planning ability of the subjects. In the test discs with different sizes and three pegs, on which discs are placed, are used. The task is to move the discs from an initial position to a target position in minimum steps while obeying the rules imposed on movements. In clinical applications, mostly three or four discs are used and the target state is to have all discs on the third peg. The first subtask is to place the biggest disc on the target peg, whatever the number of discs and the initial position is. Then following the same solution concept from the second biggest disc onward provides a solution. To solve the Towers of Hanoi task, one has to create the sequence of possible moves obeying the rules in mind and has to evaluate how much the position is close to the target one. Creating sequential moves and evaluating them require a properly functioning working memory which, is a kind of memory needed to keep and organize the information temporarily, while performing a cognitive task. In this work, a framework which is capable of generating the processes that are suggested to be performed in the working memory during the Hanoi Towers task, is proposed. The proposed framework has two parts. The first part generates possible legal (obeys the rules) moves and the second part evaluates the generated moves considering closeness of these to the target state. The second part has learning capability which realizes the selection of favorable moves which gets the discs to the target positions. This is accomplished by reward/punishment where the favorable moves are rewarded and the moves causing repetition of the discs replacements are punished. Reinforcement learning paradigm is proper to perform this kind of rewarding mechanism. To realize the reinforcement learning Q-learning method is used. In this work, three and four discs problems with different initial positions are simulated. For three discs problems, generation of only one legal move in mind usually is enough to get the similar results as the control subjects’ results. Whereas for four discs problem, generation of only one move in mind gives solution with greater number of moves than control subjects’ results. In four discs problem, at least two sequential moves have to be generated in mind to solve the task in feasible number of steps. In other words, as the number of discs increases the required working memory capacity also increases. Although there are different propositions to explain the failure in the Towers of Hanoi task, the results of this work coincide with emphasizing the working memory capacity in planning ability. Conference: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience, Bodrum, Türkiye, 1 Sep - 5 Sep, 2008. Presentation Type: Oral Presentation Topic: Attention Citation: Büyükaksoy-Kaplan G, Sengör N and Gürvit H (2008). Modeling working memory and learning in solving the towers of Hanoi test. Conference Abstract: 10th International Conference on Cognitive Neuroscience. doi: 10.3389/conf.neuro.09.2009.01.088 Copyright: The abstracts in this collection have not been subject to any Frontiers peer review or checks, and are not endorsed by Frontiers. They are made available through the Frontiers publishing platform as a service to conference organizers and presenters. The copyright in the individual abstracts is owned by the author of each abstract or his/her employer unless otherwise stated. Each abstract, as well as the collection of abstracts, are published under a Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0 (attribution) licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and may thus be reproduced, translated, adapted and be the subject of derivative works provided the authors and Frontiers are attributed. For Frontiers’ terms and conditions please see https://www.frontiersin.org/legal/terms-and-conditions. Received: 02 Dec 2008; Published Online: 02 Dec 2008. * Correspondence: Gülay Büyükaksoy-Kaplan, TUBITAK Marmara Research Center, Koceli, Türkiye, gulay.kaplan@bte.mam.gov.tr Login Required This action requires you to be registered with Frontiers and logged in. To register or login click here. Abstract Info Abstract The Authors in Frontiers Gülay Büyükaksoy-Kaplan N. Sengör H. Gürvit Google Gülay Büyükaksoy-Kaplan N. Sengör H. Gürvit Google Scholar Gülay Büyükaksoy-Kaplan N. Sengör H. Gürvit PubMed Gülay Büyükaksoy-Kaplan N. Sengör H. Gürvit Related Article in Frontiers Google Scholar PubMed Abstract Close Back to top Javascript is disabled. Please enable Javascript in your browser settings in order to see all the content on this page.
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