Temporal Cognition: A Key Ingredient of Intelligent Systems

Experiencing the flow of time is an important capacity of biological systems that is involved in many ways in the daily activities of humans and animals. However, in the field of robotics, the key role of time in cognition is not adequately considered in contemporary research, with artificial agents focusing mainly on the spatial extent of sensory information, almost always neglecting its temporal dimension. This fact significantly obstructs the development of high-level robotic cognitive skills, as well as the autonomous and seamless operation of artificial agents in human environments. Taking inspiration from biological cognition, the present work puts forward time perception as a vital capacity of artificial intelligent systems and contemplates the research path for incorporating temporal cognition in the repertoire of robotic skills

Functional neuroanatomy supporting judgments of when events occurred

The neural substrates of memory for when events occurred are not well described. One reason for this is that the paradigms used to date have permitted isolation of only some of the relevant memory processes. In this experiment, functional magnetic resonance imaging was used to identify for the first time brain regions that support two distinct bases upon which “when” judgments can be made. Seventeen human participants (6 male) completed a continuous recognition memory task where the interval between presentation and re-presentation of words varied between 5 and 25 intervening words (the lag). The task on each trial was to distinguish repeated words from those presented for the first time, and to indicate the lag for repeated words. The inferior parietal lobe showed greater activation for shorter lag judgments, regardless of judgment accuracy. The lingual gyrus, by contrast, was more active for correct than for incorrect lag judgments, regardless of the interval between first and second item presentations. Both of these regions have been linked in previous work to the process of recollection, and the findings described here represent a novel neural dissociation across regions that deploy mnemonic information in fundamentally different ways to support judgments about when events occurred

Brain system for mental orientation in space, time, and person

Orientation is a fundamental mental function that processes the relations between the behaving self to space (places), time (events), and person (people). Behavioral and neuroimaging studies have hinted at interrelations between processing of these three domains. To unravel the neurocognitive basis of orientation, we used high-resolution 7T functional MRI as 16 subjects compared their subjective distance to different places, events, or people. Analysis at the individual-subject level revealed cortical activation related to orientation in space, time, and person in a precisely localized set of structures in the precuneus, inferior parietal, and medial frontal cortex. Comparison of orientation domains revealed a consistent order of cortical activity inside the precuneus and inferior parietal lobes, with space orientation activating posterior regions, followed anteriorly by person and then time. Core regions at the precuneus and inferior parietal lobe were activated for multiple orientation domains, suggesting also common processing for orientation across domains. The medial prefrontal cortex showed a posterior activation for time and anterior for person. Finally, the default-mode network, identified in a separate resting-state scan, was active for all orientation domains and overlapped mostly with person-orientation regions. These findings suggest that mental orientation in space, time, and person is managed by a specific brain system with a highly ordered internal organization, closely related to the default-mode network

Subjective experience of episodic memory and metacognition: a neurodevelopmental approach.

Episodic retrieval is characterized by the subjective experience of remembering. This experience enables the co-ordination of memory retrieval processes and can be acted on metacognitively. In successful retrieval, the feeling of remembering may be accompanied by recall of important contextual information. On the other hand, when people fail (or struggle) to retrieve information, other feelings, thoughts, and information may come to mind. In this review, we examine the subjective and metacognitive basis of episodic memory function from a neurodevelopmental perspective, looking at recollection paradigms (such as source memory, and the report of recollective experience) and metacognitive paradigms such as the feeling of knowing). We start by considering healthy development, and provide a brief review of the development of episodic memory, with a particular focus on the ability of children to report first-person experiences of remembering. We then consider neurodevelopmental disorders (NDDs) such as amnesia acquired in infancy, autism, Williams syndrome, Down syndrome, or 22q11.2 deletion syndrome. This review shows that different episodic processes develop at different rates, and that across a broad set of different NDDs there are various types of episodic memory impairment, each with possibly a different character. This literature is in agreement with the idea that episodic memory is a multifaceted process

Local Signal Time-Series during Rest Used for Areal Boundary Mapping in Individual Human Brains

It is widely thought that resting state functional connectivity likely reflects functional interaction among brain areas and that different functional areas interact with different sets of brain areas. A method for mapping areal boundaries has been formulated based on the large-scale spatial characteristics of regional interaction revealed by resting state functional connectivity. In the present study, we present a novel analysis for areal boundary mapping that requires only the signal timecourses within a region of interest, without reference to the information from outside the region. The areal boundaries were generated by the novel analysis and were compared with those generated by the previously-established standard analysis. The boundaries were robust and reproducible across the two analyses, in two regions of interest tested. These results suggest that the information for areal boundaries is readily available inside the region of interest

Four-Dimensional Consciousness

Conscious experience is the direct observation of conscious events. Human conscious experience is four-dimensional. Conscious events are linked (associated) by spacetime intervals to produce a coherent conscious experience. This explains why conscious experience appears to us the way it does. Conscious experience is an orientation in space and time, an understanding of the position of the observer in space and time. Causality, past-future relations, learning, memory, cognitive processing, and goal-directed actions all evolve from four-dimensional conscious experience. A neural correlate for four-dimensional conscious experience can be found in the human brain and is modelled by Einstein's special theory of relativity. The relativistic concept of spacetime interval is central for understanding conscious experience and cognition

Object processing in the medial temporal lobe: Influence of object domain

We live in a rich visual world, surrounded by many different kinds of objects. While we may not often reflect on it, our ability to recognize what an object is, detect whether an object is familiar or novel, and bring to mind our general knowledge about an object, are all essential components of adaptive behavior. In this dissertation, I investigate the neural basis of object representations, focusing on medial temporal lobe (MTL) structures, namely, perirhinal cortex, parahippocampal cortex, and hippocampus. I use what type of thing an object is, or more specifically, the broader category (e.g., “face” or “house”) or domain (e.g., “animate or “inanimate”) to which an object belongs to probe MTL structures. In the Chapter 2, I used fMRI to explore whether object representations in MTL structures were organized by animacy, and/or real-world size. I found domain-level organization in all three MTL structures, with a distinct pattern of domain organization in each structure. In Chapter 3, I examined whether recognition-memory signals for objects were organized by category and domain in the same MTL structures. I found no evidence of category or domain specificity in recognition memory-signals, but did reveal a distinction between novel and familiar object representations across all categories. Finally, in Chapter 4, I used a neuropsychological approach to discover a unique contribution of the hippocampus to object concepts. I found that an individual with developmental amnesia had normal intrinsic feature knowledge, but less extrinsic, or associative feature knowledge of concepts This decreased extrinsic feature knowledge led to abnormalities specific to non-living object concepts. These results show that the hippocampus may play an important role in the development of object concepts, potentially through the same relational binding mechanism that links objects and context in episodic memory. Taken together, these findings suggest that using object category or domain to probe the function of MTL structures is a useful approach for gaining a deeper understanding of the similarities and differences between MTL structures, and how they contribute more broadly to our perception and memory of the world

There is more to memory than recollection and familiarity.

Theoretical models of memory retrieval have focused on processes of recollection and familiarity. Research suggests that there are still other processes involved in memory reconstruction, leading to experiences of knowing and inferring the past. Understanding these experiences, and the cognitive processes that give rise to them, seems likely to further expand our understanding of the neural substrates of memory

Cognitive and neural processes underlying memory for time and context

The aim of this thesis is to examine the underlying cognitive and neural processes at play during retrieval of temporal and contextual source information. This was assessed across three experimental chapters. In the first experimental chapter, Chapter 2, the neural loci of context associations were assessed. Rats trained on an odour-context association task were given lesions to either the Lateral Entorhinal Cortex (LEC) or sham lesions. After surgery, performance on the odour-context task was assessed. It was hypothesised that memory for previously learned odour-context associations would be impaired following LEC lesions but not sham lesions. The results supported this hypothesis, demonstrating impaired memory for the previously learned odour-context associations in the LEC lesion group compared to the Sham lesion. In Chapter 3, the underlying retrieval processes used to retrieve time and context in human memory was assessed across three experiments. It was hypothesised that time would be remembered accurately using both recollection and familiarity, while correct context memory should rely on recollection alone. Two out of the three experiments supported this hypothesis, demonstrating that temporal information can be retrieved using familiarity in certain instances. The final experimental Chapter 4 used fMRI to extend Chapter 3 and examine whether neural activity would be greater in regions associated with recollection during memory for context, while activity in familiarity-related regions would be higher during memory for time. Results revealed no support for these predictions with no regions linked to recollection showing greater context-related activity, and no regions previously linked to familiarity exhibiting increased activation as temporal information was retrieved. The results are discussed in relation to established recollection and familiarity frameworks and previous work examining the neural substrates supporting memory for time and context