Is the amygdala a production system?

Robert L. WestInstitute of Cognitive Science, Dept of Psychology

Carleton University

Emotion and Reason

Emotion and Reason

Emotion

Irrational

Sub Symbolic

Unconscious process

Qualia = Feeling

Bottom up

Reason

Rational

Symbolic

Conscious process

Qualia = Knowing

Top down

The Amygdala

Fits the two systems picture well

or does it???

Amygdala

Neuroscience of murder and aggression

Amygdala functional correlations

Classical/Operant conditioning (particularly with fear)

Memory cueing and consolidation (via Hippocampus)

Decision making (Somatic Markers)

Perception (Blind Sight, Fast path)

Social (Faces, Emotions, Highjacking)

Motor reactions (particularly with fear)

Lots of clinical correlations

two seperate systems

Descartes Error

Antonio Damasio

Emotional Intelligence

Daniel Goleman

The Emotional Brain

Joseph Ledoux

integrated system

Fast path found in mice but not in primates

Lots of functional and anatomical connections between amygdala and other areas

No anatomical distinction between cognition and emotion

No evidence somatic markers are somatic

Lots of evidence the amygdala responds to symbolic threat

See Pessoa & Adlophs (2010) Multiple Waves Model

Somatic is meaningless

Somatic markers means non symbolic (not sub symbolic)

Based on a narrow definition of “symbol”

Newell definition: Symbol = distal access

ACT-R: distal access = buffer = neural connections

May be two systems, but not somatic

ACT-R issues

Can emotion be modeled with the tools already in ACT-R?

Does the amygdala system function as a seperate production system and if so what are the limitations and consequences especially regarding control and timing (the bottleneck)?

To what extent is emotion sub-symbolic/bio-chemical/paramater-based and to what extent is it symbolic/chunk-based/vector-based?

How does emotion interact with chunks in DM?

act-r can already do everything the amygdala does

Learning - Rescorla-Wagner

Memories - create and reinforce

Reacts to perceptual inputs

Direct motor responses

Change focus

Somatic markers - use chunks with Blending

Two Systems in act-r

Amygdala = production system

Faster production time simulates fast path

Access to buffers

Ability to direct modules

Ability to interupt motor module

Buffer for emotional states

Repeatedly adds to memory (consolidation)

Somatic markers - blending and spreading activation

integrated system in act-r

Iterative approach - What minimally needs to be added to get amygdala functionality

Alarms can be modeled in ACT-R by using high utility productions

Alarm Buffer - connections from the amygdala

Parallel Alarm Monitor - the amygdala

Use productions but not a production system

No sense of context (no access to other buffers or DM retrievals)

parallel alarm monitor

Basil Ganglia

goalbuffer

imaginalbuffer

Amygdala

Perception Motor

DMbuffer

alarmbuffer

faster

Conclusion

Although popular, the two systems view is not well supported neurally or experimentally

ACT-R already has everything to model the Amygdala

We need to treat emotion as information

We need more research

Unexpected interuptions, DM memory effects, Emotional learning