A model of cortical cognitive function using hierarchical interactions of gating matrices in internal agents coding relational representations

Flexible cognition requires the ability to rapidly detect systematic functions of variables and guide future behavior based on predictions. The model described here proposes a potential framework for patterns of neural activity to detect systematic functions and relations between components of sensory input and apply them in a predictive manner. This model includes multiple internal gating agents that operate within the state space of neural activity, in analogy to external agents behaving in the external environment. The multiple internal gating agents represent patterns of neural activity that detect and gate patterns of matrix connectivity representing the relations between different neural populations. The patterns of gating matrix connectivity represent functions that can be used to predict future components of a series of sensory inputs or the relationship between different features of a static sensory stimulus. The model is applied to the prediction of dynamical trajectories, the internal relationship between features of different sensory stimuli and to the prediction of affine transformations that could be useful for solving cognitive tasks such as the Ravens progressive matrices task.