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There exist very few ways to isolate cognitive processes, historically defined via highly controlled laboratory studies, in more ecologically valid contexts. Specifically, it remains unclear as to what extent patterns of neural activity…
Planning entails identifying sequences of actions to reach a goal, yet we still have incomplete knowledge of how problem constraints, such as difficulty and available time, influence the visual strategies supporting plan construction, both…
Large language models (LLMs) with reasoning capabilities have fueled a compelling narrative that reasoning universally improves performance across language tasks. We test this claim through a comprehensive evaluation of 504 configurations…
The critical brain hypothesis posits that neural circuitry operates near criticality to reap the computational benefits of accessing a wide range of timescales. The theory of critical phenomena generally predicts heavy-tailed (power-law)…
Lateralization is ubiquitous in vertebrate brains which, as well as its role in locomotion, is considered an important factor in biological intelligence. Lateralization has been associated with both poor and good performance. It has been…
Multi-task learning (MTL) seeks to improve the generalized performance of learning specific tasks, exploiting useful information incorporated in related tasks. As a promising area, this paper studies an MTL-based control approach…
Reinforcement learning (RL) depends critically on the choice of reward functions used to capture the de- sired behavior and constraints of a robot. Usually, these are handcrafted by a expert designer and represent heuristics for relatively…
The human brain exhibits a complex structure made of scale-free highly connected modules loosely interconnected by weaker links to form a small-world network. These features appear in healthy patients whereas neurological diseases often…
This paper addresses two main challenges facing systems neuroscience today: understanding the nature and function of a) cortical feedback between sensory areas and b) correlated variability. Starting from the old idea of perception as…
The brain may be thought of as a many-body architecture with a spatio-temporal dynamics described by neuronal structures. The oscillatory nature of brain activity allows these structures (nodes) to be described as a set of coupled…
The cerebellum is implicated in nearly every domain of human cognition, yet our understanding of how this subcortical structure contributes to cognition remains elusive. Efforts on this front have tended to fall into one of two camps. On…
Large language models (LLMs) are increasingly used for causal and counterfactual reasoning, yet their reliability in real-world policy evaluation remains underexplored. We construct a benchmark of 40 empirical policy evaluation cases drawn…
The relationship between brain lateralization and cognitive functions is well-documented. The left hemisphere primarily handles tasks such as language and arithmetic, while the right hemisphere is involved in creative activities like…
Our ability to track multiple objects in a dynamic environment enables us to perform everyday tasks such as driving, playing team sports, and walking in a crowded mall. Despite more than three decades of literature on multiple object…
In a sequential decision-making problem, having a structural dependency amongst the reward distributions associated with the arms makes it challenging to identify a subset of alternatives that guarantees the optimal collective outcome.…
To interpret our surroundings, the brain uses a visual categorization process. Current theories and models suggest that this process comprises a hierarchy of different computations that transforms complex, high-dimensional inputs into…
This study examines the problem of hopping robot navigation planning to achieve simultaneous goal-directed and environment exploration tasks. We consider a scenario in which the robot has mandatory goal-directed tasks defined using Linear…
Mammalian functional architecture flexibly adapts, transitioning from integration where information is distributed across the cortex, to segregation where information is focal in densely connected communities of brain regions. This…
Achieving robust language technologies that can perform well across the world's many languages is a central goal of multilingual NLP. In this work, we take stock of and empirically analyse task performance disparities that exist between…
Recent multi-task learning studies suggest that linear scalarization, when using well-chosen fixed task weights, can achieve comparable to or even better performance than complex multi-task optimization (MTO) methods. It remains unclear why…