Using artificial neural networks to ask ‘why’ questions of minds and brains
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1-s2.0-S0166223622002624-main.pdf
Description
Published version
Size
2.91 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
ba2508b195195e043a42758f2c4b27ad
Author(s)
Kanwisher, Nancy
Khosla, Meenakshi
Dobs, Katharina
Date Issued
March 2023
Journal
Trends in Neurosciences
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Citation
Kanwisher, Nancy, Khosla, Meenakshi and Dobs, Katharina. 2023. "Using artificial neural networks to ask ‘why’ questions of minds and brains." Trends in Neurosciences, 46 (3).
Version
Final published version
Abstract
Neuroscientists have long characterized the properties and functions of the nervous system, and are increasingly succeeding in answering how brains perform the tasks they do. But the question 'why' brains work the way they do is asked less often. The new ability to optimize artificial neural networks (ANNs) for performance on human-like tasks now enables us to approach these 'why' questions by asking when the properties of networks optimized for a given task mirror the behavioral and neural characteristics of humans performing the same task. Here we highlight the recent success of this strategy in explaining why the visual and auditory systems work the way they do, at both behavioral and neural levels.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tins.2022.12.008
