HOMEWORK 3, CSC 190A/290A, 2008 ================================ DUE: Fri Mar 7/08, 5:00pm NOTE: Questions should be answered independently by each student. (That's not to say you should talk about the ideas with others -- by all means do!) Any text taken from elsewhere should be quoted and attributed (to avoid those dreaded charges of plagiarism). Keep your answers as crisp and tightly reasoned as you can. It's better to say a few things clearly and persuasively than to keep writing just to fill the page. For most parts of the 3 questions, a few sentences or a paragraph should suffice. (Perhaps one or two of the questions may justify a longer answer, of a page or so, where a page is about 36 printed lines.) ALL WORK SHOULD BE IN ELECTRONIC FORM, BUT PRINTED OUT FOR HANDING IN. No handwritten papers, again -- please. -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=- 1. Affect, information processing, and action ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a. How could we integrate a theory of affect (more or less consistently with Ortony, Norman & Revell's ideas) with Baars' theater model? (If you see incompatibilities, say what they are as well.) [Answer in a few paragraphs.] b. How could we integrate Ortony, Norman & Revell's 3-level information processing architecture with Rolls' "dual routes for initiation of action"? (If you see incompatibilities, say what they are as well.) [Answer in a paragraph or two.] c. Is Rolls' second paragraph on p. 135 about how action is controlled reconcilable with with Libet's observation of delayed awareness of action initiation? Explain your position on this. [Answer in a paragraph or two.] 2. Fellous & Ledoux's fear circuits ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a. Compare the role of working memory in Fellous & Ledoux's theory with its role in Baars' theory. b. Fellous & Ledoux don't mention Baars, despite talking about working memory as a workspace or blackboard, from a computational perspective. This may be because of a certain distaste they have for Baars' major focus in his work, which is rather different from their own methodological emphasis. Can you identify that difference? Explain as fully as you can. c. In what way can Fellous & Ledoux's theory of fear be said to allow for both simple, reactive fear and "cognitively based" fear? d. It isn't hard to think of examples of fear in humans that is in some sense cognitively based (involving thought, not just some vague, unarticulated dread). Provide a couple of your own examples, and discuss to what extent (if at all) Fellous & Ledoux shed light on these types of fear. e. Putting together ideas from Rolls and Fellous & Ledoux, what can you say about the functional role of the amygdala in emotions (of various sorts)? [Interpret "functional" as referring not so much to the amagdala's interconnections with other neural centers, but rather to its causal role in the generation of an emotional response.] 3. Ralph Adolph's and Aaron Sloman's functional architectures ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ a. In Adolph's conception of emotions, how do emotional evaluations become associated with perceptual representations? b. Based on your own knowledge, to what extent do various animals display emotion -- e.g., think of a gnu being taken down by a lion; a dog greeting its master, upon the latter's arrival at home; a calf or fledgling bird calling to its mother; a bull in the bullring; a pig shrieking on its way into the slaughterhouse [be assured this happens, perhaps because of the scent of blood]. What are the evolutionary advantages, or lack thereof, of communicating emotions for various animals? Does Adolphs allow in principle for the role of language in social communication of emotion, and for the way this might make human expression of emotion distinct from that of other animals? Justify your answer. c. Sloman defines an emotional state as (roughly) a state an agent is in when it has detected some condition that is apt to interfere with its current or potential processing activity. [It turns out that processing activities can be such things as setting the heart rate or pupil size, not just conscious activities.] Do your best to apply this definition of emotions, in relation to some reasonably wide, varied set of human emotions. (Say, consider 5 different emotions.) Feel free to criticize, depending on how well or how poorly you think Sloman's definition fits commonsense intuitions about the chosen emotions.