Neacsu, Victorita;
Convertino, Laura;
Friston, Karl J;
(2022)
Synthetic Spatial Foraging With Active Inference in a Geocaching Task.
Frontiers in Neuroscience
, 16
, Article 802396. 10.3389/fnins.2022.802396.
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Abstract
Humans are highly proficient in learning about the environments in which they operate. They form flexible spatial representations of their surroundings that can be leveraged with ease during spatial foraging and navigation. To capture these abilities, we present a deep Active Inference model of goal-directed behavior, and the accompanying belief updating. Active Inference rests upon optimizing Bayesian beliefs to maximize model evidence or marginal likelihood. Bayesian beliefs are probability distributions over the causes of observable outcomes. These causes include an agent's actions, which enables one to treat planning as inference. We use simulations of a geocaching task to elucidate the belief updating-that underwrites spatial foraging-and the associated behavioral and neurophysiological responses. In a geocaching task, the aim is to find hidden objects in the environment using spatial coordinates. Here, synthetic agents learn about the environment via inference and learning (e.g., learning about the likelihoods of outcomes given latent states) to reach a target location, and then forage locally to discover the hidden object that offers clues for the next location.
| Type: | Article |
|---|---|
| Title: | Synthetic Spatial Foraging With Active Inference in a Geocaching Task |
| Location: | Switzerland |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| DOI: | 10.3389/fnins.2022.802396 |
| Publisher version: | https://doi.org/10.3389/fnins.2022.802396 |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © 2022 Neacsu, Convertino and Friston. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY) (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms. |
| Keywords: | active inference, free energy principle, geocaching, goal-directed behavior, navigation, spatial foraging, uncertainty |
| UCL classification: | UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology > Imaging Neuroscience UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Brain Sciences > UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10144607 |
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