A Computational Formulation of the Behavior Systems Account of the Temporal Organization of Motivated Behavior T ⁎ Federico Sanabriaa, , Carter W
Behavioural Processes 169 (2019) 103952 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Behavioural Processes journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/behavproc A computational formulation of the behavior systems account of the temporal organization of motivated behavior T ⁎ Federico Sanabriaa, , Carter W. Danielsa,b, Tanya Guptaa, Cristina Santosc a Arizona State University, United States b Columbia University, United States c Universidade do Minho, Portugal ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT Keywords: The behavior systems framework suggests that motivated behavior—e.g., seeking food and mates, avoiding Algorithm predators—consists of sequences of actions organized within nested behavioral states. This framework has Behavior system bridged behavioral ecology and experimental psychology, providing key insights into critical behavioral pro- Bout cesses. In particular, the behavior systems framework entails a particular organization of behavior over time. The Markov model present paper examines whether such organization emerges from a generic Markov process, where the current Reinforcement behavioral state determines the probability distribution of subsequent behavioral states. This proposition is Temporal organization developed as a systematic examination of increasingly complex Markov models, seeking a computational for- mulation that balances adherence to the behavior systems approach, parsimony, and conformity to data. As a result of this exercise, a nonstationary partially hidden Markov model is selected as a computational formulation of the predatory subsystem. It is noted that the temporal distribution of discrete responses may further unveil the structure and parameters of the model but, without proper mathematical modeling, these discrete responses may be misleading. Opportunities for further elaboration of the proposed computational formulation are identified, including developments in its architecture, extensions to defensive and reproductive subsystems, and metho- dological refinements.
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