Symbol manipulation and rule learning in spiking neuronal networks

Chrisantha Fernando
2011 Journal of Theoretical Biology  
It has been claimed that the productivity, systematicity and compositionality of human language and thought necessitate the existence of a physical symbol system (PSS) in the brain. Recent discoveries about temporal coding suggest a novel type of neuronal implementation of a physical symbol system. Furthermore, learning classifier systems provide a plausible algorithmic basis by which symbol re-write rules could be trained to undertake behaviours exhibiting systematicity and compositionality,
more » ... ing a kind of natural selection of re-write rules in the brain, We show how the core operation of a learning classifier system, namely, the replication with variation of symbol re-write rules, can be implemented using spike-time dependent plasticity based supervised learning. As a whole, the aim of this paper is to integrate an algorithmic and an implementation level description of a neuronal symbol system capable of sustaining systematic and compositional behaviours. Previously proposed neuronal implementations of symbolic representations are compared with this new proposal.
doi:10.1016/j.jtbi.2011.01.009 pmid:21237176 fatcat:iro52il65jgcrf23q6dyzhwkfq