46,103 research outputs found
Metric State Space Reinforcement Learning for a Vision-Capable Mobile Robot
We address the problem of autonomously learning controllers for
vision-capable mobile robots. We extend McCallum's (1995) Nearest-Sequence
Memory algorithm to allow for general metrics over state-action trajectories.
We demonstrate the feasibility of our approach by successfully running our
algorithm on a real mobile robot. The algorithm is novel and unique in that it
(a) explores the environment and learns directly on a mobile robot without
using a hand-made computer model as an intermediate step, (b) does not require
manual discretization of the sensor input space, (c) works in piecewise
continuous perceptual spaces, and (d) copes with partial observability.
Together this allows learning from much less experience compared to previous
methods.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figure
Toward a model of computational attention based on expressive behavior: applications to cultural heritage scenarios
Our project goals consisted in the development of attention-based analysis of human expressive behavior and the implementation of real-time algorithm in EyesWeb XMI in order to improve naturalness of human-computer interaction and context-based monitoring of human behavior. To this aim, perceptual-model that mimic human attentional processes was developed for expressivity analysis and modeled by entropy. Museum scenarios were selected as an ecological test-bed to elaborate three experiments that focus on visitor profiling and visitors flow regulation
Neural codes for one’s own position and direction in a real-world “vista” environment
Humans, like animals, rely on an accurate knowledge of one’s spatial position and facing direction to keep orientated in the surrounding space. Although previous neuroimaging studies demonstrated that scene-selective regions (the parahippocampal place area or PPA, the occipital place area or OPA and the retrosplenial complex or RSC), and the hippocampus (HC) are implicated in coding position and facing direction within small-(room-sized) and large-scale navigational environments, little is known about how these regions represent these spatial quantities in a large open-field environment. Here, we used functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) in humans to explore the neural codes of these navigationally-relevant information while participants viewed images which varied for position and facing direction within a familiar, real-world circular square. We observed neural adaptation for repeated directions in the HC, even if no navigational task was required. Further, we found that the amount of knowledge of the environment interacts with the PPA selectivity in encoding positions: individuals who needed more time to memorize positions in the square during a preliminary training task showed less neural attenuation in this scene-selective region. We also observed adaptation effects, which reflect the real distances between consecutive positions, in scene-selective regions but not in the HC. When examining the multi-voxel patterns of activity we observed that scene-responsive regions and the HC encoded both spatial information and that the RSC classification accuracy for positions was higher in individuals scoring higher to a self-reported questionnaire of spatial abilities. Our findings provide new insight into how the human brain represents a real, large-scale “vista” space, demonstrating the presence of neural codes for position and direction in both scene-selective and hippocampal regions, and revealing the existence, in the former regions, of a map-like spatial representation reflecting real-world distance between consecutive positions
Neural population coding: combining insights from microscopic and mass signals
Behavior relies on the distributed and coordinated activity of neural populations. Population activity can be measured using multi-neuron recordings and neuroimaging. Neural recordings reveal how the heterogeneity, sparseness, timing, and correlation of population activity shape information processing in local networks, whereas neuroimaging shows how long-range coupling and brain states impact on local activity and perception. To obtain an integrated perspective on neural information processing we need to combine knowledge from both levels of investigation. We review recent progress of how neural recordings, neuroimaging, and computational approaches begin to elucidate how interactions between local neural population activity and large-scale dynamics shape the structure and coding capacity of local information representations, make them state-dependent, and control distributed populations that collectively shape behavior
An Adaptive Locally Connected Neuron Model: Focusing Neuron
This paper presents a new artificial neuron model capable of learning its
receptive field in the topological domain of inputs. The model provides
adaptive and differentiable local connectivity (plasticity) applicable to any
domain. It requires no other tool than the backpropagation algorithm to learn
its parameters which control the receptive field locations and apertures. This
research explores whether this ability makes the neuron focus on informative
inputs and yields any advantage over fully connected neurons. The experiments
include tests of focusing neuron networks of one or two hidden layers on
synthetic and well-known image recognition data sets. The results demonstrated
that the focusing neurons can move their receptive fields towards more
informative inputs. In the simple two-hidden layer networks, the focusing
layers outperformed the dense layers in the classification of the 2D spatial
data sets. Moreover, the focusing networks performed better than the dense
networks even when 70 of the weights were pruned. The tests on
convolutional networks revealed that using focusing layers instead of dense
layers for the classification of convolutional features may work better in some
data sets.Comment: 45 pages, a national patent filed, submitted to Turkish Patent
Office, No: -2017/17601, Date: 09.11.201
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