https://hdl.handle.net/11000/1421 Fri, 03 Apr 2026 20:08:51 GMT 2026-04-03T20:08:51Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39217 Título : The Complementary Roles of Allostatic and Contextual Control Systems in Foraging Tasks Autor : Marcos, Encarni; Sánchez-Fibla, Martí; Verschure, Paul F.M.J. Resumen : To survive in an unknown environment an animal has to learn how to reach specific goal states. The animal is firstly guided by its reactive behavior motivated by its internal needs. After exploring the environment, contextual information can be used to optimally fulfill these internal needs. However, how a reactive and a contextual control system complement each other is still a fundamental question. Here, we address this problem from the perspective of the Distributed Adaptive Control architecture (DAC). We extend DAC’s reactive layer with an allostatic control system and integrate it with its contextual control layer. Through robot foraging tasks we test the properties of the allostatic and contextual control systems and their interaction. We assess how they scale with task complexity. In particular, we show that the behavior generated by the contextual control layer is of particular importance when the system is facing conflict situations. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:45:30 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39217 2026-02-12T08:45:30Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39216 Título : Distributed Adaptive Control: A Proposal on the Neuronal Organization of Adaptive Goal Oriented Behavior Autor : Duff, Armin; Rennó-Costa, César; Marcos, Encarni; Luvizotto, Andre L.; Giovannucci, Andrea; Sanchez Fibla, Marti; Bernardet, Ulysses; Verschure, Paul F.M.J. Resumen : In behavioral motor coordination and interaction it is a fundamental challenge how an agent can learn to perceive and act in unknown and dynamic environments. At present, it is not clear how an agent can – without any explicitly predefined knowledge – acquire internal representations of the world while interacting with the environment. To meet this challenge, we propose a biologically based cognitive architecture called Distributed Adaptive Control (DAC). DAC is organized in three different, tightly coupled, layers of control: reactive, adaptive and contextual. DAC based systems are self-contained and fully grounded, meaning that they autonomously generate representations of their primary sensory inputs, hence bootstrapping their behavior form simple to advance interactions. Following this approach, we have previously identified a novel environmentallymediated feedback loop in the organization of perception and behavior, i.e. behavioral feedback. Additionally, we could demonstrated that the dynamics of the memory structure of DAC, acquired during a foraging task, are equivalent to a Bayesian description of foraging. In this chapter we present DAC in a concise form and show how it is allowing us to extend the different subsystems to more biophysical detailed models. These further developments of the DAC architecture, not only allow to better understand the biological systems, but moreover advance DACs behavioral capabilities and generality. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:40:31 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39216 2026-02-12T08:40:31Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39215 Título : The Hierarchical Accumulation of Knowledge in the Distributed Adaptive Control Architecture Autor : Marcos, Encarni; Ringwald, Milanka; Duff, Armin; Sánchez-Fibla, Martín; Verschure, Paul F.M.J. Resumen : Animals acquire knowledge as they interact with the world. Several authors define this acquisition as a chain of transformations: data is acquired and converted into information that is converted into knowledge. Moreover, theories on cumulative learning suggest that different cognitive layers accumulate this knowledge, building highly complex skills from low complexity ones. The biologically, based Distributed Adaptive Control cognitive architecture (DAC) has been proposed as a cumulative learning system. DAC contains different layers of control: reactive, adaptive and contextual. This hierarchical organization allows for acquisition of knowledge in a bottom-up interaction, i.e. sampled data is transformed into knowledge. DAC has already been used as a framework to investigate fundamental problems encountered in biology. Here we describe the DAC architecture and present some studies focused on its highest cognitive layer where knowledge is constructed and used. We investigate the roles of reactive and contextual control depending on the characteristics and complexity of the tasks. We also show how multi-sensor information could be integrated in order to acquire and use knowledge Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:35:05 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39215 2026-02-12T08:35:05Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39214 Título : Moth-Like Chemo-Source Localization and Classification on an Indoor Autonomous Robot Autor : López, Lucas L.; Vouloutsi, Vasiliki; Escuredo Chimeno, Alex; Marcos, Encarni; Bermúdez i Badia, Sergi; Mathews, Zenon; Verschure, Paul F.M.J.; Ziyatdinov, Andrey; Perera i Lluna, Alexandre Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:32:50 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39214 2026-02-12T08:32:50Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39213 Título : Neural variability in premotor cortex is modulated by trial history and predicts behavioral performance Autor : Marcos, Encarni; Pani, Pierpaolo; Brunamonti, Emiliano; Deco, Gustavo; Ferraina, Stefano; Verschure, Paul F.M.J. Resumen : In the study of decision making, emphasis is placed on different forms of perceptual integration, while the influence of other factors, such as memory, is ignored. In addition, it is believed that the information underlying decision making is carried in the rate of the neuronal response, while its variability is considered unspecific. Here we studied the influence of recent experience on motor decision making by analyzing the activity of neurons in the dorsal premotor area of two monkeys performing a countermanding arm task. We observe that the across-trial variability of the neural response strongly correlates with trial history-dependent changes in reaction time. Using a theoretical model of decision making, we show that a trial history-monitoring signal can explain the observed behavioral and neural modulation. Our study reveals that, in the neural processes that culminate in motor plan maturation, the evidence provided by perception and memory is reflected in mean rate and variance respectively. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:27:25 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39213 2026-02-12T08:27:25Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39212 Título : An embodied biologically constrained model of foraging: from classical and operant conditioning to adaptive real-world behavior in DAC-X Autor : Maffei, Giovanni; Santos-Pata, Diogo; Marcos, Encarni; Sanchez Fibla, Marti; Verschure, Paul F.M.J. Resumen : Animals successfully forage within new environments by learning, simulating and adapting to their surroundings. The functions behind such goal-oriented behavior can be decomposed into 5 top-level objectives: 'how', 'why', 'what', 'where', 'when' (H4W). The paradigms of classical and operant conditioning describe some of the behavioral aspects found in foraging. However, it remains unclear how the organization of their underlying neural principles account for these complex behaviors. We address this problem from the perspective of the Distributed Adaptive Control theory of mind and brain (DAC) that interprets these two paradigms as expressing properties of core functional subsystems of a layered architecture. In particular, we propose DAC-X, a novel cognitive architecture that unifies the theoretical principles of DAC with biologically constrained computational models of several areas of the mammalian brain. DAC-X supports complex foraging strategies through the progressive acquisition, retention and expression of task-dependent information and associated shaping of action, from exploration to goal-oriented deliberation. We benchmark DAC-X using a robot-based hoarding task including the main perceptual and cognitive aspects of animal foraging. We show that efficient goal-oriented behavior results from the interaction of parallel learning mechanisms accounting for motor adaptation, spatial encoding and decision-making. Together, our results suggest that the H4W problem can be solved by DAC-X building on the insights from the study of classical and operant conditioning. Finally, we discuss the advantages and limitations of the proposed biologically constrained and embodied approach towards the study of cognition and the relation of DAC-X to other cognitive architectures. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:25:35 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39212 2026-02-12T08:25:35Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39211 Título : Motor Cost Influences Perceptual Decisions Autor : Marcos, Encarni; Cos, Ignasi; Girard, Benoît; Verschure, Paul F.M.J. Resumen : Perceptual decision making has been widely studied using tasks in which subjects are asked to discriminate a visual stimulus and instructed to report their decision with a movement. In these studies, performance is measured by assessing the accuracy of the participants' choices as a function of the ambiguity of the visual stimulus. Typically, the reporting movement is considered as a mere means of reporting the decision with no influence on the decision-making process. However, recent studies have shown that even subtle differences of biomechanical costs between movements may influence how we select between them. Here we investigated whether this purely motor cost could also influence decisions in a perceptual discrimination task in detriment of accuracy. In other words, are perceptual decisions only dependent on the visual stimulus and entirely orthogonal to motor costs? Here we show the results of a psychophysical experiment in which human subjects were presented with a random dot motion discrimination task and asked to report the perceived motion direction using movements of different biomechanical cost. We found that the pattern of decisions exhibited a significant bias towards the movement of lower cost, even when this bias reduced performance accuracy. This strongly suggests that motor costs influence decision making in visual discrimination tasks for which its contribution is neither instructed nor beneficial. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:23:58 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39211 2026-02-12T08:23:58Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39210 Título : Evidence against perfect integration of sensory information during perceptual decision making Autor : Carland, Matthew A.; Marcos, Encarni; Thura, David; Cisek, Paul Resumen : Perceptual decision making is often modeled as perfect integration of sequential sensory samples until the accumulated total reaches a fixed decision bound. In that view, the buildup of neural activity during perceptual decision making is attributed to temporal integration. However, an alternative explanation is that sensory estimates are computed quickly with a low-pass filter and combined with a growing signal reflecting the urgency to respond and it is the latter that is primarily responsible for neural activity buildup. These models are difficult to distinguish empirically because they make similar predictions for tasks in which sensory information is constant within a trial, as in most previous studies. Here we presented subjects with a variant of the classic constant-coherence motion discrimination (CMD) task in which we inserted brief motion pulses. We examined the effect of these pulses on reaction times (RTs) in two conditions: 1) when the CMD trials were blocked and subjects responded quickly and 2) when the same CMD trials were interleaved among trials of a variable-motion coherence task that motivated slower decisions. In the blocked condition, early pulses had a strong effect on RTs but late pulses did not, consistent with both models. However, when subjects slowed their decision policy in the interleaved condition, later pulses now became effective while early pulses lost their efficacy. This last result contradicts models based on perfect integration of sensory evidence and implies that motion signals are processed with a strong leak, equivalent to a low-pass filter with a short time constant. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:22:44 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39210 2026-02-12T08:22:44Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39209 Título : Event- and time-dependent decline of outcome information in the primate prefrontal cortex Autor : Marcos, Encarni; Tsujimoto, Satoshi; Genovesio, Aldo Resumen : The prefrontal cortex (PF) is involved in outcome-based flexible adaptation in a dynamically changing environment. The outcome signal dissipates gradually over time, but the temporal dynamics of this dissipation remains unknown. To examine this issue, we analyzed the outcome-related activity of PF neurons in 2 monkeys in a distance discrimination task. The initial prestimulus period of this task varied in duration, allowing us to dissociate the effects of time and event on the decline in previous outcome-related activity -previous correct versus previous error. We observed 2 types of decline in previous outcome representation: PF neurons that ceased to encode the previous outcome as time passed (time-dependent) and neurons that maintained their signal but it decreased rapidly after the occurrence of a new external event (event-dependent). Although the time-dependent dynamics explained the decline in a greater proportion of neurons, the event-dependent decline was also observed in a significant population of neurons. Thu, 12 Feb 2026 08:20:25 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39209 2026-02-12T08:20:25Z https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39201 Título : Outcome Modulation Across Tasks in the Primate Dorsolateral Prefrontal Cortex Autor : Marcos, Encarni; Nougaret, Simon; Tsujimoto, Satoshi; Genovesio, Aldo Resumen : Animals need to learn and to adapt to new and changing environments so that appropriate actions that lead to desirable outcomes are acquired within each context. The prefrontal cortex (PF) is known to underlie such function that directly implies that the outcome of each response must be represented in the brain for behavioral policies update. However, whether such PF signal is context dependent or it is a general representation beyond the specificity of a context is still unclear. Here, we analyzed the activity of neurons in the dorsolateral PF (PFdl) recorded while two monkeys performed two perceptual magnitude discrimination tasks. Both tasks were well known by the monkeys and unexpected changes did not occur but the difficulty of the task varied from trial to trial and thus the monkeys made mistakes in a proportion of trials. We show a context-independent coding of the response outcome with neurons maintaining similar selectivity in both task contexts. Using a classification method of the neural activity, we also show that the trial outcome could be well predicted from the activity of the same neurons in the two contexts. Altogether, our results provide evidence of high degree of outcome generality in PFdl. Wed, 11 Feb 2026 12:57:29 GMT https://hdl.handle.net/11000/39201 2026-02-11T12:57:29Z