We propose a paradigm for modeling speech production based on neural networks. We focus on characteristics of the musculoskeletal system. Using real physiological data - articulator movements and EMG from muscle activitya neuralnetwork learns the forward dynamics relating motor commands to muscles and the ensuing articulator behavior. After learning, simulated perturbations, were used to asses properties of the acquired model, such as natural frequency, damping, and interarticulator couplings. Finally, a cascade neural network is used to generate continuous motor commands from a sequence of discrete articulatory targets.

This paper briefly describes an artificial neural network for preattentive visual processing. The network is capable of determiuing image motioll in a type of stimulus which defeats most popular methods of motion detect.ion

To test whether the known connectivies of neurons in the lamprey spinal cord are sufficient to account for locomotor rhythmogenesis, a CCconnectionist" neuralnetwork simulation was done using identical cells connected according toexperimentally established patterns. It was demonstrated that the network oscillates in a stable manner with the same phase relationships amongthe neurons as observed in the lamprey. The model was then used to explore coupling between identical?scillators. It was concluded that the neurons can have a dual role as rhythm generators and as coordinators betweenoscillators to produce the phase relations observed among segmental oscillators during swimming.

THE MODEL; STOCHASTIC RESONANCE The reduced neuron model consists of a single Hopfield-type computational element, which may be modeled as a R-C circuit with nonlinear feedback provided by an operational amplifier having a sigmoid transfer function.

Because eye muscles never cocontract and do not deal with external loads, one can write an equation that relates motoneuron firing rate to eye position and velocity - a very uncommon situation in the CNS. The semicircular canals transduce head velocity in a linear manner by using a high background discharge rate, imparting linearity to the premotor circuits that generate eye movements. This has allowed deducing some of the signal processing involved, including a neural network that integrates. These ideas are often summarized by block diagrams. Unfortunately, they are of little value in describing the behavior of single neurons - a fmding supported by neural network models.

The notion of generalization ability can be defined precisely as the prediction risk,the expected performance of an estimator in predicting new observations. In this paper, we propose the prediction risk as a measure of the generalization ability of multi-layer perceptron networks and use it to select an optimal network architecture from a set of possible architectures. Wealso propose a heuristic search strategy to explore the space of possible architectures. The prediction risk is estimated from the available data; here we estimate the prediction risk by v-fold cross-validation and by asymptotic approximations of generalized cross-validation or Akaike's final prediction error. We apply the technique to the problem of predicting corporate bond ratings. This problem is very attractive as a case study, since it is characterized by the limited availability of the data and by the lack of a complete a priori model which could be used to impose a structure to the network architecture.

Do you want your neural net algorithm to learn sequences? Do not limit yourselfto conventional gradient descent (or approximations thereof). Instead, use your sequence learning algorithm (any will do) to implement the following method for history compression. No matter what your final goalsare, train a network to predict its next input from the previous ones. Since only unpredictable inputs convey new information, ignore all predictable inputs but let all unexpected inputs (plus information about the time step at which they occurred) become inputs to a higher-level network of the same kind (working on a slower, self-adjusting time scale). Go on building a hierarchy of such networks.

Ion channels are the dynamical systems of the nervous system. Their distribution within the membrane governs not only communication of information betweenneurons, but also how that information is integrated within the cell. Here, an argument is presented for an'anti-Hebbian' rule for changing the distribution of voltage-dependent ion channels in order to flatten voltage curvatures in dendrites. Simulations show that this rule can account for the self-organisation of dynamical receptive field properties such as resonance and direction selectivity. It also creates the conditions for the faithful conduction within the cell of signals to which the cell has been exposed. Various possible cellular implementations of such a learning ruleare proposed, including activity-dependent migration of channel proteins in the plane of the membrane.

This paper examines whether temporal difference methods for training connectionist networks, such as Suttons's TO('\) algorithm, can be successfully appliedto complex real-world problems. A number of important practical issues are identified and discussed from a general theoretical perspective. Thesepractical issues are then examined in the context of a case study in which TO('\) is applied to learning the game of backgammon from the outcome of self-play. This is apparently the first application of this algorithm to a complex nontrivial task. It is found that, with zero knowledge built in, the network is able to learn from scratch to play the entire game at a fairly strong intermediate level of performance, which is clearly better than conventional commercial programs, and which in fact surpasses comparable networks trained on a massive human expert data set. The hidden units in these network have apparently discovered useful features, a longstanding goal of computer games research.

Using the double-step target displacement paradigm the mechanisms underlying armtrajectory modification were investigated. Using short (10-110 msec) inter-stimulus intervals the resulting hand motions were initially directed in between the first and second target locations. The kinematic features of the modified motions were accounted for by the superposition scheme, which involves the vectorial addition of two independent point-topoint motionunits: one for moving the hand toward an internally specified location and a second one for moving between that location and the final target location. The similarity between the inferred internally specified locations andpreviously reported measured endpoints of the first saccades in double-step eye-movement studies may suggest similarities between perceived targetlocations in eye and hand motor control.