Touch, Sensing and the Nervous System in AI

CIIC 5995-100 / ICOM 5995-100
Human Perspective in Artificial Intelligence
(HPAI)
Professor José Meléndez, PhD
“…to feel touch, after years of going without it, is very meaningful. It makes a
huge difference. It means I can feel my kid’s touch. It makes all the difference in
the world.”
- Christopher Reeve (1952-2004)

UPCOMING IMPORTANT DATES
• Exam #1:
• Will be given on Monday March 9, 2019 in class.
• BRING PENCILS
• Online portions in Moodle (if any) available online before
11:59PM on Thursday March 5, 2019 and due before
11:59PM on Monday March 9, 2019
• Material will relate to everything covered in classes, in
homeworks, on Moodle course page, and required reading
assigned prior to the date of the Exam.
• Suggest to review class slides carefully and class recordings
(where available) as necessary to better understand class
slides (on Moodle).

Required “Reading”
• Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality
• TED Talk of Anil Seth, Professor, University of Sussex
• https://youtu.be/lyu7v7nWzfo
• Google Colaboratory
• https://colab.research.google.com/notebooks/welcome.ipynb

Next Up
• Recap: Ears & Eyes vs. Taste & Smell
• Touch Sensing
• External
• Interoception (Internal)
• OPEN Q/A FOR EXAM PREP

Compare & Contrast
Eyes & Ears Tongue/Nose
How are they alike?
Receive input from the environment
Contribute to our senses
All in our heads
Layers 1-2
Collaborate in taste
Interconnected
Biochemical inputs
Waves – Electromagnetic/Acoustic
“Physics”
McGurk Effect
Spatial world – remote
How are they different?

Next Up
• Touch Sensing
• External
• Interosensing (Internal)
• OPEN Q/A FOR EXAM PREP

Next Up
• Touch Sensing
• External
• Interosensing (Internal)
Internal Self

Touch and Emotions
There is a relationship between touch and emotions:
• I am touched by your sorrow.
• I am in touch with her.
• I feel for you.
• I feel the wind blowing on my face.
• I feel the pain in my lower back.
• I have no feelings for him.
• I have no feelings in my arm.
• Sentir…
• Estoy conmovido
• Estoy en contacto
• Lo siento mucho … lo siento mucho

Viscus and Visceral
http://www.austincc.edu/apreview/PhysText/CNS.html

Interosensors
• Interoception is the Perception of the State of the Body
• Interoception restrictive meaning is of sensations originating from viscera
• General meaning includes all forms of pain.
• Touch is all about self
• Responds to changes to ourselves due to stimulus from the environment
• Responds to changes to ourselves based on what is happening inside
(e.g. allergic reaction, indigestion).
• No clear distinction between Touch and Interoception
• For purposes of this class we may treat them together
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4876111/

• The most amazing and important sense (of self)
• Sense of touch begins to develop before we are born.
• Touch receptors exist inside, outside and all over our bodies
• Touch is sensitive to all 5 types of Sensible Energies.
• Forces (e.g. mechanical, vibrational)
• Electromagnetic Energy (e.g. absorbed sunlight)
• Biochemical Interactions (e.g. heart burn, pain)
• Thermal Energy (e.g. hot pan or ice)
• Electrical Energy (e.g. static discharge)
• Associated afferent signals ascend the spinal cord to the brain.
• Given a single “touch” alone, it is very difficult (in some cases
impossible) for the brain to determine the cause.
• More questions than answers remain in the science of touch
Observations of Touch (Somatic Senses)

Types of Touch Receptors (Functional)
1. THERMAL ENERGY Relative Temperature, Body heat
2. FORCE Pressure, Texture
3. ELECTRICAL ENERGY electrical current shock
4. BIOCHEMICAL INTERACTIONS itch
5. ELECTROMAGNETIC ENERGY sunlight heats skin)
Five (5) Sensible Energies

Types of Touch Receptors
• Free Nerve Ending (Nociceptor)
• Pain, Touch, Temperature,
Electric Discharge, Sunlight
• Merkle
• Low Pressure, Concentrated
• Perifocular
• Hair movement
• Ruffini Corpuscle
• Touch, Pressure, Proprio
• Meissner Corpuscle
• Concentrated (hairless areas)
• Pacinian Corpuscle
• Pressure and vibration (deep)
s
http://www.interactive-biology.com/3629/7-senses-and-an-introduction-to-sensory-receptors/

Exemplary Touch Testing – Two Points
Pressure Specified Sensory Device (PSSD)
• Quantitative data of pressure perception thresholds
• Static one-point sensation
• Two-point discrimination
• Inter-prong distance and applied pressure control
https://www.sciencedirect.com/topics/veterinary-science-and-veterinary-medicine/two-point-discrimination

Touch
https://i.stack.imgur.com/POXi6.jpg

• Sensory Nerve Cells
• Signals coming into the brain
• Motor Never Cells
• Signals coming from the brain
The Nervous System
https://www.slideserve.com/shubha/sense-of-touch

• Central Nervous System (CNS)
• Consists of the Brain and Spinal Cord
• Integrates and Correlates Sensory
Information
• Generates Thought, Perception and
Emotions
• Forms and Stores Memory
• Regulates Body’s Physiology and
Movement
• Peripheral Nervous System (PNS)
• Consists of Spinal Nerves, Cranial
Nerves, and Ganglia
• Carries Message to and from the
Spinal Cord and Brain
The Nervous System

• Afferent (PNSàCNS)
• Sensory (skin, muscles, joints)
• Visceral (from “internal” organs)
• Efferent (CNSàPNS)
• Somatic (Conscious control)
• Autonomic (Regulation)
• Association (Interneurons)
• e.g. Reflex Arcs
Classes of Neurons

• Function as alarms
• Send messages above a certain
threshold
• Activate if something could or
does cause damage
Nociception

Sensory Motor Integration
http://www.interactive-biology.com/3629/7-senses-and-an-introduction-to-sensory-receptors/ (Adapted)
(Muscle Spindle)

• Somatic means of the body
• Somatic adjacent to Motor
Sensory Motor Integration

• Located in each Parietal Lobe
• Receives input from Somatic
Sensory Receptors
• Attempts to localize sensation’s
origin
• Homunculus – Proportional to
sensory perception of body part
Primary Somatosensory Cortex

• Located in each Frontal Lobe
• Controls voluntary motions of
specific muscle groups
• Homunculus – Proportional to
movement complexity of body part
Primary Motor Cortex

Spinal Reflex Arc
• Automatic spinal reflex
• Receptor message to Spinal Cord
• Interneuron to Motor Neuron
• Motor Neuron message to Effector
• After messages arrive at brain
• Involuntary action
• No involvement of brain in reflex

Sensory to Reflex Arc
https://techxplore.com/news/2018-05-artificial-nerve-prosthetic-devices-robots.html
• Environment applies pressure onto skin surface
• Pressure is distributed underneath the skin
• Mechanosensory nerves transform pressure into electrical signals
• Neurons pass electrical signal to target effector cells

Artificial Sensory to Reflex Arc
• Environment applies pressure onto flexible pressure sensor cluster
• Increased pressure is transformed into increased oscillator electrical bias signals
• Increased bias results in increasing oscillator frequency and “postsynaptic” currents

Artificial Sensory to Reflex Arc
• Environment applies pressure onto flexible pressure sensor cluster
• Increased pressure is transformed into increased oscillator electrical bias signals
• Increased bias results in increasing oscillator frequency and “postsynaptic” currents
AI machine learning of a robot’s positions in a 3D space based on
the sensing from its “skin”, could help a robot have a perception of
its self orientations in space (proprioception).

Insect Reflex Arc
• Environmental obstacle sensed by insect through sensory nerve
• Messages are sent to the Central Nervous System (CNS)
• CNS signals motor nerve and lifts leg

https://youtu.be/5Rp4V3Sj5jE?t=622
RoboRoach Video (On Moodle)
(Start at 10:22)

Artificial Sensory Hybrid Reflex Arc

Insect Reflex Arc
Signals from Artificial Sensory Nerve actuate Roach Leg

Interoception Video (On Moodle)
(Start at 10:03)
https://youtu.be/lyu7v7nWzfo?t=603
Professor Anil Seth
University of Sussex
“Your brain hallucinates your conscious reality” - TED Talk

Exam #1: Open Question/Answer
• Limitations of present day AI (e.g. Sophia & Microsoft Cognitive Services)
• Models and Modeling (Importance of Self)
• Decision Making (e.g. Classical, Human, AI)
• Artificial General Intelligence
• How Emotions are Made: Introduction, Chapters 1-3
• Theory of Constructed Emotions
• Classical Theory of Emotions
• Human Systems Interconnection (HSI) Model
• Reality and Synthetic Reality (e.g. Occurrences, “Real”, Augmented, Virtual)
• Sensing & Sensors
• What of the environment is sensible
• How we can hear, see, taste, smell, and touch (internally & externally)
• What we cannot sense with our human senses
• Artificial sensing – similarities and differences
• Introduction to combining senses in perception (e.g. McGurk Effect)
• Material will relate to everything covered in classes, in homeworks, on Moodle
course page, and required reading assigned prior to the date of the Exam.
Exemplary Topics:

HSI Model Layers & Descriptions
Layer # Layer Group Layer Name Layer Description
7 Host Conscious Thought
The Conscious Thought Layer within the host provides a human's sense of self
including awareness and the sense of experiencing (inclusive of emotions ). Its
information regarding the world is as presented by Layer 6.
6 Host Presentation (Simulated Reality)
The Presentation Layer creates a human's representation of the world as a
simulated, virtual reality. It selects and transforms conceptual information from
Layer 5 for the consideration of the Host's Consciousness and transfers Host
directives to Mini-Modules for further action.
5 Mini-Module Subconscious Thought
The Subconscious Thought Layer applies learned concepts to incoming pre-processed
signal data from Layer 4 to simplify and otherwise reduce the amount of information
otherwise sent to the Host Layers for consideration. It also deconstructs concept
requests from the Host into requests for Layer 4.
4 Mini-Module Subconscious Processing
The Subconscious Processing Layer receives and pre-processes bioelectric signals of
both external and internal (memory) origin. It also formats and transfers directives
received from Layer 5 to the appropriate bioelectrical signaling channels of Layer 3.
3 Media Bioelectrical Signaling
The Bioelectric Signaling layer essentially consists of the interbody pathways of the
human nervous system that transmit action signals to and receive sensory signals
from Layer 2. It forwards sensory information to and receives directives from Layer
4.
2 Media Actuators / Receptors
The Actuators / Receptors Layer functions to produce forces and motion in
accordance with the directives of the signals received from Layer 3 and also responds
to the interactions with the sensible energies of Layer 1.
1 Media Occurrences
The Occurrences Layer functions as the first level of interaction with that which is
made to happen, or happens and can ultimately be felt, heard, seen, tasted, or
smelled. Occurrences may arise outside of and/or inside of the body.

Human Systems Interconnection (HSI) Model
An Intra and Intercommunications View
HOST LAYERS
Layer 7
Conscious Thought
Layer 6
Presentation
(Simulated Reality)
MINI-MODULE LAYERS
Layer 5
Subconscious Thought
(Concept Application)
Layer 4
Subconscious Processing
MEDIA LAYERS
Layer 3
Bioelectrical Signaling
Layer 2
Actuators / Receptors
Layer 1
Occurrences
(Sensible Energies)
Instance 1 Instance NA7
Instance 1 Instance NB7

Artificial General Intelligence (AGI)
Motivated Agent Architecture Model
Waser M.R., What is Artificial General Intelligence? Clarifying the Goal for Engineering and Evaluation,
The Second Conference on Artificial General Intelligence. (2008)
Common Attributes
Components
Interdependencies
Conditions
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