2024-01-20 06:45:53
AI Reveals the Dark Side of Memory and Imagination: We Could Be Fooled by Our Own Brains
UCL research is changing understanding of how the brain works.
University College London (UCL) study published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour , represents significant advances in understanding human memory and imagination using artificial intelligence technologies. The work used an AI model called a generative neural network, which mimics the functions of the brain.
Researchers have explored how generative AI models can explain how we use memories to explore the world, experience past events, and create scenarios for imagination and planning. The model included networks representing the hippocampus and neocortex, two parts of the brain known to interact in memory, imagination and planning.
Eleanor Spence, a PhD student at the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience, said: “The generative networks used in AI show how information can be extracted from experience so that we can both remember specific experiences and flexibly imagine what new experiences might be.”
During the experiment, the researchers fed the model 10,000 images of simple scenes. The hippocampus-mimicking network quickly encoded each scene as it appeared. These scenes were then replayed to train a generative neural network in the neocortex. As a result, the neocortex has learned to create efficient “conceptual” representations of scenes, allowing old scenes to be recreated and entirely new ones to be generated.
Professor Neil Burgess, senior author of the study from the UCL Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience and UCL Queen Square Institute of Neurology, explained: “The way in which memories are reconstructed, rather than being precise records of the past, shows how the meaning or essence of an experience is combined with unique details that can lead to bias in our recollection of events.”
This research opens new perspectives on understanding the mechanisms of human memory and imagination, providing a unique perspective on how the brain reconstructs past events and creates new scenarios.
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