Functional Neurophysiology of Cognitive Processes in Behavioral Sequence Learning
Responsables :
Peter F. Dominey, CNRS
Jocelyne Ventre-Dominey, INSERM
Members :
Christelle
Dodane
- mail, Post-doctoral fellow
Michel Hoen, Graduate
student
Jean Marc Blanc, Graduate student
Hélène Mollion,
MD,
Neurologist, Graduate student
new (september 2006)
New
Human-Robot Interaction
Demos
Works in progress by Peter Dominey and coll :
for the other works of the team, please see the French version
The Saccade Model
Based on an extensive analysis of studies of the
neurophysiology of the oculomotor saccade system Dominey & Arbib
(1992) developed a model
that described single and double step saccade behavior and
electrophysiology of LIP and the frontal eye fields (FEF), caudate and
substantia nigra of the
basal ganglia, and the superior colliculus in these ocuomotor
tasks. We also used this model and its extenstion to
investigate neural mechanisms for colliding saccades evoked by frontel
eye field stimulation (Dominey et
al. 1997), and Nicolas Schweighoffer examined how the cerebellum
could
be added to the model to provide for adaptive gain control
(Schweighofer et
al. 1996a,b).
Sequence Learning Model
In order to account for ocolomotor and manual sequence learning behavior and electrophysiology in the prefrontal cortex as observed by Barone and Joseph (1989 Exp Brain Res), we augmented the saccade model with a prefrontal cortex, and dopaine modulated cortico-striatal plasticity (Dominey, Arbib and Joseph 1995 - DAJ95). The model simulated sequence learning and performance behavior, as well as the neurophysiolgical task-related activity of PFC neurons. We also demonstrated how a behavioral task that required context dependant responses to sequential stimuli could be learned by the model, with insights again into the underlying neurophysiology (Dominey & Boussaoud 1997).
It is worth noting that this (Dominey, Arbib and
Joseph 1995) was the first neurocomputational model that proposed that
reward-related dopamine would provide a mechanism for cortico-striatal
plasticity, based on the work at the time of Schultz and colleagues,
and Calabresi and colleagues.
Part of the design goal of the DAJ95 model was to accomodate input and behavioral output that was organized in time in the same way that behavioral tasks are presented to behaving primates. That is, we were interested in both the serial order of sequences, and their temporal structure, i.e. the durations of sequence elements themselves and the delays between them. The model was thus demonstrated to perform quite well both in complex seqeunce learning (Dominey 1995) and in its sensitivity to the temporal organization of behavioral sequences (Dominey 1998a,b).
Dominey PF (1995) Complex Sensory-Motor Sequence
Learning Based on Recurrent State-Representation and Reinforcement
Learning, Biological Cybernetics, 73, 265-274
Dominey PF (1998) Influences of Temporal Organization
on
Transfer in Sequence Learning: Comments on Stadler (1995) and
Curran
and Keele (1993) J. Exp Psychology: Learning, Memory and
Cognition, 24 (1) 234-248
Dominey
PF
(1998) A shared system for learning serial and temporal structure
of
sensori-motor sequences? Evidence from simulation and human
experiments. Cognitive
Brain Research. 6, 163-174
Motor Imagery in Parkinson's Disease
At the same time, based on the functional
organization of the model we predicted that dopaine depletion in
Parkinson's disease should
lead to correlated impairments in the imagery without execution, and in
the
execution of motor seqeucnes in patients. This was behaviorally
confirmed
in Dominey et al. (1997), and led to a series of brain imagery studies
that
further revealed the underying neurrophysiology (Thobois et al. 2000;
2001
etc).
Abstract Structure Learning
During this period I began a series of sequence
learning experiments that led to the development of the concept of
sequences (e.g. ABC-BAC, and DEF-EDF) that share a common abstract
structure that can be used
to generate new isomorphic sequences. We argued (Dominey et al.
1998)
that the DAJ95 model (rebaptized the Temporal Recurrent Network or TRN)
could
not learn abstract structure, similar to the point argued by Marcus et
al.
in their controversial paper in Science (1999). As part of the
arguement
for dissociable systems of learrning serial and abstract structure, we
demonstrated
relatively selectie failures for abstract processing in schizophrenics
(Dominey
and Georgieff 1997) and serial processing in Parkinsonian patients
(Dominey
et al. 1997).
Sequential Cognition and Language
The strategy in the language domain is to start with infant capabilities and then build up to those of the adult.
Temporal Structure of Language
Developmental studies indicate that between birth
and 8
months of age, infants display sensitivity to the serial, temporal and
abstract
structure of language and language-like sound seqeunces. We thus
used
this well documented behavior as the simulation targets, and indeed
demonstrated
that the model could simulate serial, temporal and abstract structure
sensitivity
as observed by Saffran et al (1996), Nazzi et al. (1998), and Marcus et
al.
(1999), respectively in Dominey and Ramus (2000).
This
sensitivity to temporal structure likely contributes to the initial
lexical
categorization of open vs. closed class words (Shi et al. 2000), that
will
play a crucial role in subsequent phrasal sementics processing
including
thematic role assignment. We thus demonstrated (Blanc, Dodane
&
Dominey 2003) that the TRN could detect differences in the temporal
structure
of F0 to perform lexical categorization in French and English.
Similarly,
Blanc & Dominey (2003) demonstrated that the TRN can exploit the
temporal
structure of the fundamental frequency to discriminate between
different
prosodic attitudes in spoken language.
Thematic Role Assignment and Syntactic Comprehension:
With these developmental studies underway, and the
introduction of abstract structure, the stage was set for addressing
aspects of adult language
processing. A first naive attempt was made in Dominey
(1997). Then in Dominey (2000 chapter), thematic role assignment
(i.e. determining "who did what to whom") was addressed in the context
of abstract structure procesisng. Different abstract structures
corrresponded to different mappings from input sentences to their
canonically ordered thematic roles, and these mappings were under the
control of closed class words processed in the TRN. This work was
further developped and generated predictions that were tested (Dominey
et al. 2003) in ERP (Hoen and Dominey 2000, Lelekov et al. 2000) and
behavioral experients (Hoen et al. 2003).
The previous work demonstrated the concept that thematic role assignements could be associated with different patterns of closed class words characteristic of different sentence types. This concept was further extended into the domain of grammatical constructions as sentence to meaning mappings, both in the extension of the model (Dominey 2000/2002), and in the development of scene analysis systems that can extract meaning from scenes based on sequcnes of physical primitives including contact and changes in position (Dominey 2003a, b).
The future work rests on two interesting and chalenging positions: The first is theoretical and holds that it is the generative structure of semantics and conceputal structure - combined with communication requirments - that drives syntactic structure and not the other way arround. The second position is technical and holds that the proof is in the pudding, and that to test and validate our ideas we must build systems based on these ideas. The currrent state of developent in robotics, computer vision and human language technology holds great promise in this domain.
Recent Publications:
Dominey PF, Hoen M (2005) Structure Mapping and Semantic Integration in a Construction-Based Neurolinguistic Model of Sentence Processing, In Press, Cortex
Hoen M, Pachot-Clouard M, Segebarth C, Dominey P.F.
(2005)
When Broca experiences the Janus syndrome. An er-fMRI study comparing
sentence
comprehension and cognitive sequence processing. In Press, Cortex
Dominey PF (2005) Situation Alignment and
Routinization
in Language Acquisition, (Comment on Martin J. Pickering & Simon
Garrod
Toward a Mechanistic Psychology of Dialogue), Beh. Brain
Sciences,
In press
Dominey PF (2003) A Conceptuocentric Shift in
the
Characterization of Language, Invited Book Review of "Foundations
of
Language: Brain, Meaning, Grammar, Evolution" (Oxford University
Press,
2002) by Ray Jackendoff, in Beh. Brain Sciences, 26(6):666-667
Dominey PF (2003) Representational Limitations of
the
One-place Predicate, (Comment on James R. Hurford, The neural basis of
predicate-argument
structure), Beh. Brain Sciences, 26 (3), 291-293
Dominey PF
(2005)
Emergence of Grammatical Constructions: Evidence from Simulation and
Grounded
Agent Experiments. In press, Connection Science, Special Issue on
The
Emergence of Language: Neural and Adaptive Agent Models
Dominey PF (2006) From Holophrases to
Abstract
Grammatical Constructions: Insights from Simulation Studies, In Eve
Clark
and B. Kelly, Grammatical Constructions in the Acquisition of Syntax.
retour
équipes ISC
Institut
des
Sciences Cognitives UMR 5015 CNRS UCB Lyon 1
67, boulevard
Pinel
69675 BRON cedex
33 (0)4 37 91 12 12 
33 (0)4 37 91 12 10 
web@isc.cnrs.fr
ACCUEIL
ISC
