Is the amygdala a production
system?
Robert L. West
Institute of Cognitive Science, Dept of Psychology
Carleton University
Emotion and Reason
Emotion and Reason
Reason
Rational
Symbolic
Conscious process
Qualia = Knowing
Top down
Emotion
Irrational
Sub Symbolic
Unconscious
process
Qualia = Feeling
Bottom up
The Amygdala
Fits the two systems picture well
Amygdala
or does it???
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 ACTR?
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/biochemical/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
alarm
buffer
Amygdala
DM
buffer
goal imaginal
buffer
buffer
Basil Ganglia
faster
Perception
Motor
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