How to Build a Brain: A Neural Architecture for Biological Cognition (Oxford Series on Cognitive Models and Architectures)

Eliasmith, Chris

ISBN 10: 0199794545 / ISBN 13: 9780199794546

Published by Oxford University Press, 2013

About this Item

Gently read. May have name of previous ownership, or ex-library edition. Binding tight; spine straight and smooth, with no creasing; covers clean and crisp. Minimal signs of handling or shelving. 100% GUARANTEE! Shipped with delivery confirmation, if you're not satisfied with purchase please return item for full refund. Ships USPS Media Mail.

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Bibliographic Details

• Title: How to Build a Brain: A Neural Architecture for Biological Cognition (Oxford Series on Cognitive Models and Architectures)
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Publication Date: 2013
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0199794545
• ISBN 13: 9780199794546
• Binding: Hardcover
• Condition: very_good

About this title

Synopsis

One goal of researchers in neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence is to build theoretical models that are able to explain the flexibility and adaptiveness of biological systems. How to build a brain provides a detailed guided exploration of a new cognitive architecture that takes biological detail seriously, while addressing cognitive phenomena. The Semantic Pointer Architecture (SPA) introduced in this book provides a set of tools for constructing a wide range of biologically constrained perceptual, cognitive, and motor models.

Examples of such models are provided, and they are shown to explain a wide range of data including single cell recordings, neural population activity, reaction times, error rates, choice behavior, and fMRI signals. Each of these models introduces a major feature of biological cognition addressed in the book, including semantics, syntax, control, learning, and memory. These models are not introduced as independent considerations of brain function, but instead integrated to give rise to what is currently the world's largest functional brain model.

The last half of this book compares the Semantic Pointer Architecture with the current state-of-the-art, addressing issues of theory construction in the behavioral sciences, semantic compositionality, and scalability, among other considerations. The book concludes with a discussion of conceptual challenges raised by this architecture, and identifies several outstanding challenges for this, and other, cognitive architectures.

Along the way, the book considers neural coding, concept representation, neural dynamics, working memory, neuroanatomy, reinforcement learning, and spike-timing dependent plasticity. The book includes 8 detailed, hands-on tutorials exploiting the free Nengo neural simulation environment, providing practical experience with the concepts and models presented throughout.

About the Author

Chris Eliasmith is Canada Research Chair in Theoretical Neuroscience at the University of Waterloo