Computational Cognitive Modeling

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The field builds computational accounts of mental processes, from memory and language to decision-making, emotion, and social reasoning. Researchers use Bayesian and reinforcement-learning models, resource-rational algorithms, cognitive architectures, neural networks, and program induction, testing them against behavioral, neural, and real-world data. Newer work also uses language models and automated experiments to generate and compare theories. A central challenge is distinguishing genuine explanatory mechanisms from systems that merely match behavior, while ensuring models generalize beyond the tasks and data on which they were developed.

Latest papers

126 papers7 papers in the last four weeks, down 56% on the four weeks before. 0.0% of all new papers.

Apr 17, 2026

Human Cognition in Machines: A Unified Perspective of World Models

This report of world models distinguishes prior works by the cognitive functions they innovate. Many works claim an almost human-like cognitive capability in their world models. To evaluate these claims requires a proper grounding in first principles from human and machine cognition theory. In moving towards human-like world models we present a conceptual unified framework for world models that fully incorporates all the cognitive functions (i.e., memory, perception, language, reasoning, imagining, motivation, and metacognition) and identify gaps in existing research as a guide for future states of the art. In particular, we find that motivation (especially intrinsic motivation) and metacognition remain drastically under-researched, and we propose concrete directions to address these gaps informed by active inference and global workspace theory. We also introduce epistemic world models, a new category encompassing agent frameworks for scientific discovery that operate over structured knowledge. Our taxonomy, applied to video, embodied, and epistemic world models, suggests research directions where prior taxonomies have not.

Timothy Rupprecht, Pu Zhao, Amir Taherin +20

Northeastern University, Boston, MA, USA · EmbodyX Inc., San Mateo, CA, USA · Tulane University, New Orleans, LA, USA +2

Computational Cognitive Modeling World Model Learning World Models Intrinsic Motivation

Apr 14, 2026

From edges to meaning: Semantic line sketches as a cognitive scaffold for ancient pictograph invention

Humans readily recognize objects from sparse line drawings, a capacity that appears early in development and persists across cultures, suggesting neural rather than purely learned origins. Yet the computational mechanism by which the brain transforms high-level semantic knowledge into low-level visual symbols remains poorly understood. Here we propose that ancient pictographic writing emerged from the brain's intrinsic tendency to compress visual input into stable, boundary-based abstractions. We construct a biologically inspired digital twin of the visual hierarchy that encodes an image into low-level features, generates a contour sketch, and iteratively refines it through top-down feedback guided by semantic representations, mirroring the feedforward and recurrent architecture of the human visual cortex. The resulting symbols bear striking structural resemblance to early pictographs across culturally distant writing systems, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese oracle bone characters, and proto-cuneiform, and offer candidate interpretations for undeciphered scripts. Our findings support a neuro-computational origin of pictographic writing and establish a framework in which AI can recapitulate the cognitive processes by which humans first externalized perception into symbols.

Seowung Leem, Lin Gu, Ruogu Fang

J. Crayton Pruitt Family Dept. of Biomedical Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA · Research Institute of Electrical Communication, Tohoku University, Japan · Dept. of Electrical and Computer Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL 32611, USA +2

Computational Cognitive Modeling

Apr 14, 2026

Cognition-Inspired Dual-Stream Semantic Enhancement for Vision-Based Dynamic Emotion Modeling

The human brain constructs emotional percepts not by processing facial expressions in isolation, but through a dynamic, hierarchical integration of sensory input with semantic and contextual knowledge. However, existing vision-based dynamic emotion modeling approaches often neglect emotion perception and cognitive theories. To bridge this gap between machine and human emotion perception, we propose cognition-inspired Dual-stream Semantic Enhancement (DuSE). Our model instantiates a dual-stream cognitive architecture. The first stream, a Hierarchical Temporal Prompt Cluster (HTPC), operationalizes the cognitive priming effect. It simulates how linguistic cues pre-sensitize neural pathways, modulating the processing of incoming visual stimuli by aligning textual semantics with fine-grained temporal features of facial dynamics. The second stream, a Latent Semantic Emotion Aggregator (LSEA), computationally models the knowledge integration process, akin to the mechanism described by the Conceptual Act Theory. It aggregates sensory inputs and synthesizes them with learned conceptual knowledge, reflecting the role of the hippocampus and default mode network in constructing a coherent emotional experience. By explicitly modeling these neuro-cognitive mechanisms, DuSE provides a more neurally plausible and robust framework for dynamic facial expression recognition (DFER). Extensive experiments on challenging in-the-wild benchmarks validate our cognition-centric approach, demonstrating that emulating the brain's strategies for emotion processing yields state-of-the-art performance and enhances model interpretability.

Huanzhen Wang, Ziheng Zhou, Zeng Tao +5

College of Intelligent Robotics and Advanced Manufacturing, Fudan University, Shanghai, China · Shanghai Key Lab of Intelligent Information Processing, College of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Fudan University, Shanghai, China · School of Data Science and Engineering, East China Normal University, Shanghai, China

Facial Expression Recognition Multimodal Emotion Recognition Computational Cognitive Modeling

Apr 11, 2026

Zero-shot World Models Are Developmentally Efficient Learners

Young children demonstrate early abilities to understand their physical world, estimating depth, motion, object coherence, interactions, and many other aspects of physical scene understanding. Children are both data-efficient and flexible cognitive systems, creating competence despite extremely limited training data, while generalizing to myriad untrained tasks -- a major challenge even for today's best AI systems. Here we introduce a novel computational hypothesis for these abilities, the Zero-shot World Model (ZWM). ZWM is based on three principles: a sparse temporally-factored predictor that decouples appearance from dynamics; zero-shot estimation through approximate causal inference; and composition of inferences to build more complex abilities. We show that ZWM can be learned from the first-person experience of a single child, rapidly generating competence across multiple physical understanding benchmarks. It also shows progressive, staged emergence of capacities during learning and builds brain-like internal representations. Our work presents a blueprint for efficient and flexible learning from human-scale data, advancing both a computational account of children's early physical understanding and a path toward data-efficient AI systems.

Khai Loong Aw, Klemen Kotar, Wanhee Lee +6

Stanford University

Zero-Shot Learning Computational Cognitive Modeling World Model Learning Data-Efficient Learning

Apr 11, 2026

Computational Implementation of a Model of Category-Theoretic Metaphor Comprehension

In this study, we developed a computational implementation for a model of metaphor comprehension based on the theory of indeterminate natural transformation (TINT) proposed by Fuyama et al. We simplified the algorithms implementing the model to be closer to the original theory and verified it through data fitting and simulations. The outputs of the algorithms are evaluated with three measures: data-fitting with experimental data, the systematicity of the metaphor comprehension result, and the novelty of the comprehension (i.e. the correspondence of the associative structure of the source and target of the metaphor). The improved algorithm outperformed the existing ones in all the three measures.

Fumitaka Iwaki, Miho Fuyama, Hayato Saigo +1

School of Science and Technology, Tokyo Denki University · College of Letters, Ritsumeikan University · ZEN University

Figurative Language Understanding Computational Cognitive Modeling

Apr 10, 2026

The Fast Lane Hypothesis: Von Economo Neurons Implement a Biological Speed-Accuracy Tradeoff

von Economo neurons (VENs) are large bipolar projection neurons found exclusively in the anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) and frontal insula of species with complex social cognition, including humans, great apes, cetaceans, and elephants. Their selective depletion in frontotemporal dementia (FTD) and altered development in autism implicate them in rapid social decision-making, yet no computational model of VEN function has previously existed. We introduce the Fast Lane Hypothesis: VENs implement a biological speed-accuracy tradeoff (SAT) by providing a sparse, fast projection pathway that enables rapid social decisions at the cost of deliberate processing accuracy. We model VENs as fast leaky integrate-and-fire (LIF) neurons (tau=5ms, fan-in=8) alongside standard pyramidal neurons (tau=20ms, fan-in=80) within a spiking cortical circuit (N_pyr=2,000) trained on a social discrimination task. Networks are evaluated under three clinically motivated conditions across 10 independent random seeds: typical (2% VENs), autism-like (0.4% VENs), and FTD-like (post-training VEN ablation). All configurations achieve equivalent asymptotic classification accuracy (~99.4%), consistent with the prediction that VENs modulate decision speed rather than representational capacity. VENs produce median first-spike latencies 4ms earlier than pyramidal neurons, providing direct evidence of a fast signalling pathway. At a fixed decision threshold of theta=3, the typical condition is significantly faster than FTD-like (t=-23.31, p<0.0001), while the autism-like condition is intermediate (mean RT=26.91+/-9.01ms vs. typical 20.70+/-2.02ms; p=0.078, trending). To our knowledge, this is the first computational model that asks what a von Economo neuron actually computes.

Esila Keskin

School of Computing and Creative Technologies, University of the West of England, Bristol, UK

Computational Cognitive Modeling

Apr 10, 2026

Overhang Tower: Resource-Rational Adaptation in Sequential Physical Planning

Humans effortlessly navigate the physical world by predicting how objects behave under gravity and contact forces, yet how such judgments support sequential physical planning under resource constraints remains poorly understood. Research on intuitive physics debates whether prediction relies on the Intuitive Physics Engine (IPE) or fast, cue-based heuristics; separately, decision-making research debates deliberative lookahead versus myopic strategies. These debates have proceeded in isolation, leaving the cognitive architecture of sequential physical planning underspecified. How physical prediction mechanisms and planning strategies jointly adapt under limited cognitive resources remains an open question. Here we show that humans exhibit a dual transition under resource pressure, simultaneously shifting both physical prediction mechanism and planning strategy to match cognitive budget. Using Overhang Tower, a construction task requiring participants to maximize horizontal overhang while maintaining stability, we find that IPE-based simulation dominates early stages while CNN-based visual heuristics prevail as complexity grows; concurrently, time pressure truncates deliberative lookahead, shifting planning toward shallower horizons: a dual transition unpredicted by prior single-mechanism accounts. These findings reveal a hierarchical, resource-rational architecture that flexibly trades computational cost against predictive fidelity. Our results unify two long-standing debates (simulation vs. heuristics and myopic vs. deliberative planning) as a dynamic repertoire reconfigured by cognitive budget.

Ruihong Shen, Shiqian Li, Yixin Zhu

School of Psychological and Cognitive Sciences, Peking University · Institute for Artificial Intelligence, Peking University · School of EECS, Peking University +2

Physical Reasoning Model-Based Planning Computational Cognitive Modeling

Apr 2, 2026

Stabilising Generative Models of Attitude Change

Attitude change - the process by which individuals revise their evaluative stances - has been explained by a set of influential but competing verbal theories. These accounts often function as mechanism sketches: rich in conceptual detail, yet lacking the technical specifications and operational constraints required to run as executable systems. We present a generative actor-based modelling workflow for "rendering" these sketches as runnable actor - environment simulations using the Concordia simulation library. In Concordia, actors operate by predictive pattern completion: an operation on natural language strings that generates a suffix which describes the actor's intended action from a prefix containing memories of their past and observations of the present. We render the theories of cognitive dissonance (Festinger 1957), self-consistency (Aronson 1969), and self-perception (Bem 1972) as distinct decision logics that populate and process the prefix through theory-specific sequences of reasoning steps. We evaluate these implementations across classic psychological experiments. Our implementations generate behavioural patterns consistent with known results from the original empirical literature. However, we find that achieving stable reproduction requires resolving the inherent underdetermination of the verbal accounts and the conflicts between modern linguistic priors and historical experimental assumptions. We document how this manual process of iterative model "stabilisation" surfaces specific operational and socio-ecological dependencies that were largely undocumented in the original verbal accounts. Ultimately, we argue that the manual stabilisation process itself should be regarded as a core part of the methodology functioning to clarify situational and representational commitments needed to generate characteristic effects.

Jayd Matyas, William A. Cunningham, Alexander Sasha Vezhnevets +3

Google DeepMind · University of Toronto · Caltech +1

Computational Cognitive Modeling Human Behavior Simulation Agent-Based Modeling

Apr 2, 2026

Active Inference with a Self-Prior in the Mirror-Mark Task

The mirror self-recognition test evaluates whether a subject touches a mark on its own body that is visible only in a mirror, and is widely used as an indicator of self-awareness. In this study, we present a computational model in which this behavior emerges spontaneously through a single mechanism, the self-prior, without any external reward. The self-prior, implemented with a Transformer, learns the density of familiar multisensory experiences; when a novel mark appears, the discrepancy from this learned distribution drives mark-directed behavior through active inference. A simulated infant, relying solely on vision and proprioception without tactile input, discovered a sticker placed on its own face in the mirror and removed it in approximately 70% of cases without any explicit instruction. Expected free energy decreased significantly after sticker removal, confirming that the self-prior operates as an internal criterion for distinguishing self from non-self. Cross-modal sampling further demonstrated that the self-prior captures visual--proprioceptive associations, functioning as a probabilistic body schema. These results provide a concise computational account of the key behavior observed in the mirror test and suggest that the free energy principle can serve as a unifying hypothesis for investigating the developmental origins of self-awareness. Code is available at: https://github.com/kim135797531/self-prior-mirror

Dongmin Kim, Hoshinori Kanazawa, Yasuo Kuniyoshi

Laboratory for Intelligent Systems and Informatics, Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, The University of Tokyo, 7-3-1 Hongo, Bunkyo-ku, Tokyo, Japan

Computational Cognitive Modeling Active Inference

Mar 28, 2026

Persistent Memory Through Triple-Loop Consolidation Under Stochastic Unit Turnover

Dissipative cognitive architectures maintain computation through continuous energy expenditure, where units that exhaust their energy are stochastically replaced with fresh random state. This creates a fundamental challenge: how can persistent, context-specific memory survive when all learnable state is periodically destroyed? Existing memory mechanisms -- including elastic weight consolidation, synaptic intelligence, and surprise-driven gating -- rely on gradient computation and are inapplicable to systems that do not perform it. We introduce Deep Memory (DM), a backpropagation-free persistent memory mechanism operating through a triple-loop consolidation cycle: (1) recording of expert-specific content centroids, (2) seeding of replaced units with stored representations, and (3) stabilization through continuous re-entry. Discrete expert routing via Mixture-of-Experts (MoE) gating is required, in the regimes tested, to prevent the centroid convergence that would render stored memories identical. We derive a Foster-Lyapunov drift bound for the full triple loop, showing that seeding rescales the turnover noise floor. Across

1{,}007

simulation runs over thirteen blocks: (i) removing stable context-expert binding removes specialization (

\mathrm{MI}=1.10

vs.

0.001

;

n=91

); (ii) DM achieves

R=0.984

vs.

0.385

without memory (

n=16

); (iii) continuous seeding reconstructs representations after interference (

R_\mathrm{recon}=0.978

; one-shot fails;

n=30

); (iv) the mechanism operates within a characterized

(K,p)

envelope (

n=350

); (v) recording

\times

seeding is the minimal critical dyad (

n=40

); (vi) associative and reservoir baselines (Hopfield, ESN) are compared under matched turnover (

n=370

). DM is thus a falsifiable, bounded mechanism for persistent memory in backpropagation-free cognitive systems, with functional parallels to hippocampal consolidation.

Jianwei Lou

RailMind Systems, Neuss, Germany

Computational Cognitive Modeling Memory Consolidation

Mar 26, 2026

Do Neurons Dream of Primitive Operators? Wake-Sleep Compression Rediscovers Schank's Event Semantics

We show that they do. Roger Schank's conceptual dependency theory proposed that all human events decompose into primitive operations -- ATRANS (transfer of possession), PTRANS (physical movement), MTRANS (information transfer), and others -- hand-coded from linguistic intuition. We ask: can the same primitives be discovered automatically through compression pressure alone? We adapt DreamCoder's wake-sleep library learning to event state transformations. Given events as before/after world-state pairs, the system searches for operator compositions explaining each event (wake), then extracts recurring patterns as library entries under Minimum Description Length (sleep). Starting from four generic primitives, it discovers operators mapping to Schank's core: MOVE_PROP_has = ATRANS, CHANGE_location = PTRANS, SET_knows = MTRANS, SET_consumed = INGEST, plus compound operators (e.g., "mail" = ATRANS composed with PTRANS) and novel emotional-state operators absent from Schank's taxonomy. We validate on synthetic events, ATOMIC (Sap et al., 2019), and GLUCOSE (Mostafazadeh et al., 2020). On synthetic data, the discovered library achieves MDL within 4% of Schank's hand-coded primitives at 100% coverage (vs. Schank's 81%). On ATOMIC, Schank covers only 10%; on GLUCOSE, 31%. The discovered library covers 100% of both, dominated by mental/emotional operators -- CHANGE_wants (20%), CHANGE_feels (18%), CHANGE_is (18%) -- none in Schank's original taxonomy. Libraries discovered from one corpus transfer to the other with under 1 bit/event degradation despite different annotation schemes and domains, suggesting the operators are information-theoretically determined structure, not dataset artifacts.

Peter Balogh

Computational Cognitive Modeling Program Synthesis

Mar 23, 2026

AI Mental Models: Learned Intuition and Deliberation in a Bounded Neural Architecture

This paper asks whether a bounded neural architecture can exhibit a meaningful division of labor between intuition and deliberation on a classic 64-item syllogistic reasoning benchmark. More broadly, the benchmark is relevant to ongoing debates about world models and multi-stage reasoning in AI. It provides a controlled setting for testing whether a learned system can develop structured internal computation rather than only one-shot associative prediction. Experiment 1 evaluates a direct neural baseline for predicting full 9-way human response distributions under 5-fold cross-validation. Experiment 2 introduces a bounded dual-path architecture with separate intuition and deliberation pathways, motivated by computational mental-model theory (Khemlani & Johnson-Laird, 2022). Under cross-validation, bounded intuition reaches an aggregate correlation of r = 0.7272, whereas bounded deliberation reaches r = 0.8152, and the deliberation advantage is significant across folds (p = 0.0101). The largest held-out gains occur for NVC, Eca, and Oca, suggesting improved handling of rejection responses and c-a conclusions. A canonical 80:20 interpretability run and a five-seed stability sweep further indicate that the deliberation pathway develops sparse, differentiated internal structure, including an Oac-leaning state, a dominant workhorse state, and several weakly used or unused states whose exact indices vary across runs. These findings are consistent with reasoning-like internal organization under bounded conditions, while stopping short of any claim that the model reproduces full sequential processes of model construction, counterexample search, and conclusion revision.

Laurence Anthony

School of Creative Science and Engineering Faculty of Science and Engineering Waseda University

Logical Reasoning Computational Cognitive Modeling Neural Processes Structured Reasoning

Mar 22, 2026

Toward an automated science of the mind

Artificial Intelligence is starting to automate scientific discovery, raising the prospect of an automated science of the mind. We chart this field around four challenges: representing experiments, generating synthetic behavior, synthesizing models, and closing the loop to discover psychological theories.

Akshay K. Jagadish, Milena Rmus, Kristin Witte +3

Princeton AI Lab, Princeton University, New Jersey, USA · Institute for Human-Centered AI, Helmholtz Munich, Neuherberg, Germany · Ludwig-Maximilians-University, Munich, 80539, Germany

Autonomous Scientific Discovery Scientific Discovery Autonomous Experimentation Computational Cognitive Modeling

Mar 20, 2026

Learning Dynamic Belief Graphs for Theory-of-mind Reasoning

Theory of Mind (ToM) reasoning with Large Language Models (LLMs) requires inferring how people's implicit, evolving beliefs shape what they seek and how they act under uncertainty -- especially in high-stakes settings such as disaster response, emergency medicine, and human-in-the-loop autonomy. Prior approaches either prompt LLMs directly or use latent-state models that treat beliefs as static and independent, often producing incoherent mental models over time and weak reasoning in dynamic contexts. We introduce a structured cognitive trajectory model for LLM-based ToM that represents mental state as a dynamic belief graph, jointly inferring latent beliefs, learning their time-varying dependencies, and linking belief evolution to information seeking and decisions. Our model contributes (i) a novel projection from textualized probabilistic statements to consistent probabilistic graphical model updates, (ii) an energy-based factor graph representation of belief interdependencies, and (iii) an ELBO-based objective that captures belief accumulation and delayed decisions. Across multiple real-world disaster evacuation datasets, our model significantly improves action prediction and recovers interpretable belief trajectories consistent with human reasoning, providing a principled module for augmenting LLMs with ToM in high-uncertainty environment. https://anonymous.4open.science/r/ICML_submission-6373/

Ruxiao Chen, Xilei Zhao, Thomas J. Cova +2

Department of Civil and Systems Engineering, Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD, USA · Civil and Coastal Engineering, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA · School of the Environment, Society & Sustainability, University of Utah, Salt Lake City, UT, USA +1

Computational Cognitive Modeling LLM Reasoning with Graphs Theory of Mind Probabilistic Graphical Models Disaster Response LLM Reasoning

Mar 19, 2026

Authority-Level Priors: An Under-Specified Constraint in Hierarchical Predictive Processing

Hierarchical predictive processing explains adaptive behaviour through precision-weighted inference. Explicit belief revision often fails to produce corresponding changes in stress reactivity or autonomic regulation. This asymmetry suggests the framework leaves under-specified a governance-level constraint concerning which identity-level hypotheses regulate autonomic and behavioural control under uncertainty. We introduce Authority-Level Priors (ALPs) as meta-structural constraints defining a regulatory-admissible subset (Hauth, a subset of H) of identity-level hypotheses. ALPs are not additional representational states nor hyperpriors over precision; they constrain which hypotheses are admissible for regulatory control. Precision determines influence conditional on admissibility; ALPs determine admissibility itself. This explains why explicit belief updating modifies representational beliefs while autonomic threat responses remain stable. A computational formalisation restricts policy optimisation to policies generated by authorised hypotheses, yielding testable predictions concerning stress-reactivity dynamics, recovery time constants, compensatory control engagement, and behavioural persistence. Neurobiologically, ALPs manifest through distributed prefrontal arbitration and control networks. The proposal is compatible with variational active inference and introduces no additional inferential operators, instead formalising a boundary condition required for determinate identity-regulation mapping. The model generates falsifiable predictions: governance shifts should produce measurable changes in stress-reactivity curves, recovery dynamics, compensatory cognitive effort, and behavioural change durability. ALPs are advanced as an architectural hypothesis to be evaluated through computational modelling and longitudinal stress-induction paradigms.

Marcy Palejova

Anglia Ruskin University

Predictive Coding Active Inference Computational Cognitive Modeling

Mar 16, 2026

Computational Concept of the Psyche

This article presents an overview of approaches to modeling the human psyche in the context of constructing an artificial one. Based on this overview, a concept of cognitive architecture is proposed, in which the psyche is viewed as the operating system of a living or artificial subject, comprising a space of states, including the state of needs that determine the meaning of a subject's being in relation to stimuli from the external world, and intelligence as a decision-making system regarding actions in this world to satisfy these needs. Based on this concept, a computational formalization is proposed for creating artificial general intelligence systems for an agent through experiential learning in a state space that includes agent's needs, taking into account their biological or existential significance for the intelligent agent, along with agent's sensations and actions. Thus, the problem of constructing artificial general intelligence is formalized as a system for making optimal decisions in the space of specific agent needs under conditions of uncertainty, maximizing success in achieving goals, minimizing existential risks, and maximizing energy efficiency. A minimal experimental implementation of the model is presented.

Anton Kolonin, Vladimir Krykov

Novosibirsk State University, Pirogova 1, 630090, Novosibirsk, Russia · Aigents, Pravdy 6, Novosibirsk, 630090, Russia · SingularityNET Foundation, Baarerstrasse 141, Zug, 6300, Switzerland +1

Cognitive Architectures for AI Agents Artificial General Intelligence Computational Cognitive Modeling

Mar 7, 2026

The DIME Architecture: A Unified Operational Algorithm for Neural Representation, Dynamics, Control and Integration

Modern neuroscience has accumulated extensive evidence on perception, memory, prediction, valuation, and consciousness, yet still lacks an explicit operational architecture capable of integrating these phenomena within a unified computational framework. Existing theories address specific aspects of neural function: predictive coding and active inference emphasize hierarchical inference and prediction error minimization; engram theories explain memory through distributed cell assemblies; neuromodulatory accounts focus on value-dependent regulation of plasticity and behaviour; and global workspace or large-scale network models investigate mechanisms underlying conscious access. Despite their explanatory power, these approaches remain only partially integrated at the architectural level. This work introduces DIME (Detect-Integrate-Mark-Execute), a neural architecture organizing perception, memory, valuation, and conscious access within a common operational cycle. The framework includes four interacting components: engrams, distributed recurrent neural structures supporting multiple activation trajectories; execution threads, spatiotemporal trajectories implementing neural processes; marker systems, neuromodulatory and limbic mechanisms regulating gain, plasticity, and trajectory selection; and hyperengrams, large-scale integrative states associated with operational conscious access. The framework is consistent with empirical evidence from hippocampal indexing, recurrent cortical processing, replay phenomena, large-scale network integration, and neuromodulatory regulation. Formulated at an abstract computational level, DIME may also inform artificial intelligence and robotics by providing an architectural template in which representation, valuation, and temporal sequencing emerge from a unified mechanism. An extended theoretical exposition is available in a companion monograph on Zenodo.

Ionel Cristian Vladu, Nicu Bizdoaca, Ionica Pirici +2

Department of Electromechanics, Environment and Applied Informatics, Faculty of Electrical Engineering, University of Craiova, 200440 Craiova, Romania · Department of Mechatronics and Robotics, Faculty of Automation, Computers and Electronics, University of Craiova, 200440 Craiova, Romania · Department of Human Anatomy, University of Medicine and Pharmacy of Craiova, 200349 Craiova, Romania +2

Computational Cognitive Modeling Cognitive Architectures for AI Agents

Mar 5, 2026

BioLLMAgent: A Hybrid Framework with Enhanced Structural Interpretability for Simulating Human Decision-Making in Computational Psychiatry

Computational psychiatry faces a fundamental trade-off: traditional reinforcement learning (RL) models offer interpretability but lack behavioral realism, while large language model (LLM) agents generate realistic behaviors but lack structural interpretability. We introduce BioLLMAgent, a novel hybrid framework that combines validated cognitive models with the generative capabilities of LLMs. The framework comprises three core components: (i) an Internal RL Engine for experience-driven value learning; (ii) an External LLM Shell for high-level cognitive strategies and therapeutic interventions; and (iii) a Decision Fusion Mechanism for integrating components via weighted utility. Comprehensive experiments on the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) across six clinical and healthy datasets demonstrate that BioLLMAgent accurately reproduces human behavioral patterns while maintaining excellent parameter identifiability (correlations

>0.67

). Furthermore, the framework successfully simulates cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) principles and reveals, through multi-agent dynamics, that community-wide educational interventions may outperform individual treatments. Validated across reward-punishment learning and temporal discounting tasks, BioLLMAgent provides a structurally interpretable "computational sandbox" for testing mechanistic hypotheses and intervention strategies in psychiatric research.

Zuo Fei, Kezhi Wang, Xiaomin Chen +1

School of Computer Science and Technology, East China Normal University, 3663 North Zhongshan Road, Shanghai 200062, China · Department of Computer Science, Brunel University of London, UB8 3PH, UK · Department of Computer Science, University of Reading, RG6 6UR, UK

Computational Cognitive Modeling Mental Health Interpretability in RL Cognitive Architectures for AI Agents

Mar 3, 2026

A theoretical model of dynamical grammatical gender shifting based on set-valued set function

This study investigates the diverse characteristics of nouns, focusing on both semantic (e.g., countable/uncountable) and morphosyntactic (e.g., masculine/feminine) distinctions. We explore inter-word variations for gender markers in noun morphology. Grammatical gender shift is a widespread phenomenon in languages around the world. The aim is to uncover the underlying patterns governing the variation of lexemes. To this end, we propose a new computational component dedicated to pairing items with morphological templates (e.g., the result of a generated item-template pair: (funas,

\{N, +SG, -PL, -M, +F, -COL, +SING\}

), with its spell-out form:

ð

a-funast 'cow'). This process is formally represented by the Template-Based and Modular Cognitive model. This proposed model, defined by a set-valued set function

h : \mathscr{P}(M) \rightarrow \mathscr{P}(M)

, predicts the nonlinear dynamic mapping of lexical items onto morphological templates. By applying this formalism, we present a unified framework for understanding the complexities of morphological markings across languages. Through empirical observations, we demonstrate how these shifts, as well as non-gender shifts, arise during lexical changes, especially in Riffian. Our model posits that these variant markings emerge due to template shifts occurring during word and meaning formation. This study achieves two primary objectives. First, on the formal side, we prove the model's representational completeness in learning and prediction. Second, on the linguistic side, we challenge and broaden the conventional view of word formation by formally demonstrating that conversion is applicable to noun-to-noun derivation. This data-driven mathematical model not only contributes to a deeper understanding of morphosyntactic variation but also offers potential applications in other fields requiring precise modelling of linguistic patterns.

Mohamed El Idrissi

ENS Paris-Saclay

Computational Cognitive Modeling

Mar 2, 2026

A Resource-Rational Principle for Modeling Visual Attention Control

Understanding how people allocate visual attention is central to Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), yet existing computational models of attention are often either descriptive, task-specific, or difficult to interpret. My dissertation develops a resource-rational, simulation-based framework for modeling visual attention as a sequential decision-making process under perceptual, memory, and time constraints. I formalize visual tasks, such as reading and multitasking, as bounded-optimal control problems using Partially Observable Markov Decision Processes, enabling eye-movement behaviors such as fixation and attention switching to emerge from rational adaptation rather than being hand-coded or purely data-driven. These models are instantiated in simulation environments spanning traditional text reading and reading-while-walking with smart glasses, where they reproduce classic empirical effects, explain observed trade-offs between comprehension and safety, and generate novel predictions under time pressure and interface variation. Collectively, this work contributes a unified computational account of visual attention, offering new tools for theory-driven and resource-efficient HCI design.

Yunpeng Bai

National University of Singapore, Singapore

Human-Computer Interaction Visual Attention Computational Cognitive Modeling

Feb 26, 2026

ReCoN-Ipsundrum: An Inspectable Recurrent Persistence Loop Agent with Affect-Coupled Control and Mechanism-Linked Consciousness Indicator Assays

Indicator-based approaches to machine consciousness recommend mechanism-linked evidence triangulated across tasks, supported by architectural inspection and causal intervention. Inspired by Humphrey's ipsundrum hypothesis, we implement ReCoN-Ipsundrum, an inspectable agent that extends a ReCoN state machine with a recurrent persistence loop over sensory salience

N^s

and an optional affect proxy reporting valence/arousal. Across fixed-parameter ablations (ReCoN, Ipsundrum, Ipsundrum+affect), we operationalize Humphrey's qualiaphilia (preference for sensory experience for its own sake) as a familiarity-controlled scenic-over-dull route choice. We find a novelty dissociation: non-affect variants are novelty-sensitive (

Δ

scenic-entry = 0.07). Affect coupling is stable (

Δ

scenic-entry = 0.01) even when scenic is less novel (median {

Δ

novelty

\approx

-0.43). In reward-free exploratory play, the affect variant shows structured local investigation (scan events 31.4 vs. 0.9; cycle score 7.6). In a pain-tail probe, only the affect variant sustains prolonged planned caution (tail duration 90 vs. 5). Lesioning feedback+integration selectively reduces post-stimulus persistence in ipsundrum variants (AUC drop 27.62, 27.9%) while leaving ReCoN unchanged. These dissociations link recurrence

\rightarrow

persistence and affect-coupled control

\rightarrow

preference stability, scanning, and lingering caution, illustrating how indicator-like signatures can be engineered and why mechanistic and causal evidence should accompany behavioral markers.

Aishik Sanyal

Independent Research Engineer

Machine Consciousness Cognitive Architectures for AI Agents Computational Cognitive Modeling

Feb 23, 2026

Rules or Weights? Comparing User Understanding of Explainable AI Techniques with the Cognitive XAI-Adaptive Model

Rules and Weights are popular XAI techniques for explaining AI decisions. Yet, it remains unclear how to choose between them, lacking a cognitive framework to compare their interpretability. In an elicitation user study on forward and counterfactual decision tasks, we identified 7 reasoning strategies of interpreting three XAI Schemas - weights, rules, and their hybrid. To analyze their capabilities, we propose CoXAM, a Cognitive XAI-Adaptive Model with shared memory representation to encode instance attributes, linear weights, and decision rules. CoXAM employs computational rationality to choose among reasoning processes based on the trade-off in utility and reasoning time, separately for forward or counterfactual decision tasks. In a validation study, CoXAM demonstrated a stronger alignment with human decision-making compared to baseline machine learning proxy models. The model successfully replicated and explained several key empirical findings, including that counterfactual tasks are inherently harder than forward tasks, decision tree rules are harder to recall and apply than linear weights, and the helpfulness of XAI depends on the application data context, alongside identifying which underlying reasoning strategies were most effective. With CoXAM, we contribute a cognitive basis to accelerate debugging and benchmarking disparate XAI techniques.

Louth Bin Rawshan, Zhuoyu Wang, Brian Y Lim

Department of Computer Science, National University of Singapore, Singapore, Singapore

Explainable Artificial Intelligence Explainability Evaluation Computational Cognitive Modeling

Feb 21, 2026

Neural Fields as World Models

Humans rehearse possible futures offline, as in mental practice and perhaps dreaming, suggesting that world models may support task learning away from the environment. Standard machine learning world models compress visual input into latent vectors, discarding the spatial structure that characterizes sensory cortex. We propose isomorphic world models: architectures that preserve sensory topology, so physics prediction becomes geometric propagation rather than abstract state transition. We implement this idea with motor-gated neural fields, where activity evolves through local lateral connectivity and motor commands multiplicatively modulate specific channels. Across three experiments, the same architecture learns ballistic prediction without ``teleporting,'' improves a catching policy offline by propagating task error through a frozen learned world model, and develops body-selective motor channels without body labels. These results provide preliminary evidence that physical prediction, offline task learning, and body-linked representation share a common computational substrate: action-conditional prediction within a spatial map.

Joshua Nunley

Luddy School of Informatics, Computing, and Engineering, Indiana University, Bloomington · Cognitive Science Program, Indiana University, Bloomington

World Model Learning Action-Conditioned World Models Computational Cognitive Modeling Visuomotor Policy Learning

Feb 20, 2026

A systematic approach to answering the easy problems of consciousness based on an executable cognitive system

Consciousness is the window of the brain and reflects many fundamental cognitive properties involving both computational and cognitive mechanisms. A collection of these properties was described as the "easy problems" by Chalmers, including the ability to discriminate, categorize, and react to stimuli; information integration; reportability; information access; attention; deliberate control; and the difference between wakefulness and sleep. These "easy problems" have not been systematically addressed. This study presents a first attempt to address them systematically based on an executable cognitive system and its implemented computational mechanisms, built upon an understanding of conceptual knowledge proposed by Kant. The study suggests that the abilities to discriminate, categorize, react, report, and integrate information can all be derived from the system's learning mechanism; attention and deliberate control are goal-oriented and can be attributed to emotional states and its information-manipulation mechanism; and the difference between wakefulness and dream sleep lies mainly in the source of stimuli. The connections between the implemented mechanisms in the executive system and conclusions drawn from empirical findings are also discussed, and many of these discussions and conclusions are supported by demonstrations of the executive system.

Qi Zhang

San Jose, California, USA

Computational Cognitive Modeling

Feb 20, 2026

Information-Theoretic Storage Cost in Sentence Comprehension

Real-time sentence comprehension imposes a significant load on working memory, as comprehenders must maintain contextual information to anticipate future input. While measures of such load have played an important role in psycholinguistic theories, they have largely been formalized using symbolic grammars, which assign discrete, uniform costs to syntactic predictions. This study proposes a measure of processing storage cost based on an information-theoretic formalization, as the amount of information previous words carry about future context, under uncertainty. Unlike previous discrete, grammar-based metrics, this measure is continuous, probabilistic, theory-neutral, and can be estimated from pre-trained neural language models. The validity of this approach is demonstrated through three analyses in English: our measure (i) recovers well-known processing asymmetries in center embeddings and relative clauses, (ii) correlates with a grammar-based storage cost in a syntactically-annotated corpus, and (iii) predicts reading-time variance in two large-scale naturalistic datasets over and above baseline models with traditional information-based predictors. Our code is available at https://github.com/kohei-kaji/info-storage.

Kohei Kajikawa, Shinnosuke Isono, Ethan Gotlieb Wilcox

Department of Linguistics, Georgetown University, USA · National Institute for Japanese Language and Linguistics, Japan

Computational Psycholinguistics Computational Cognitive Modeling

Feb 12, 2026

Modeling The Object Representations Underlying Human Physical Reasoning

Humans appear to represent objects when reasoning about physics with coarse, volumetric "bodies" that smooth concavities, trading fine visual detail for efficient physical predictions. Yet, the structure of these representations remains largely unknown. Segmentation models, in contrast, are trained for pixel-accurate masks that may misalign with such bodies. We ask whether and when these models nonetheless acquire human-like object representations. Using a time-to-collision (TTC) and change detection (CD) behavioral task with data from 178 and 50 human participants, respectively, we introduce a pipeline and an alignment metric to compare the visual representations of segmentation models to those of humans. We do this systematically on multiple architectures (DINOv2, SegFormer, DeepLabV3+, and UPerNet), varying their size and training time. We find that briefly trained models segment objects too coarsely, aligning poorly with humans, while fully trained models segment objects too finely. For each model, there is an intermediate training regime that best matches the coarse bodies observed in human behaviour, and larger models tend to reach it earlier. We show these bodies emerge under resource constraints in general-purpose vision models, providing computational support to resource-rational accounts of human cognition. This work provides a foundational framework for testing alignment between vision models and humans and shows there is a growing gap between the state-of-the-art in artificial intelligence and human cognition, driven by scaling model size and training.

Andrey Gizdov, Andrea Procopio, Lorenzo Caputi +4

Harvard University · Weizmann Institute of Science · Bocconi University

Physical Reasoning Computational Cognitive Modeling Object-Centric Representation Learning Representation Alignment Semantic Segmentation

Nov 25, 2025

Universe of Thoughts: A Computational Framework for Creative Reasoning in Large Language Models

Recent advances in Large Language Model (LLM) reasoning have improved conventional problem solving, but creative reasoning remains comparatively underexplored. Inspired by cognitive science, we formalize combinational, exploratory, and transformational creativity as executable computational operators over structured problem and solution spaces, specifying how each mode combines, explores, or transforms those spaces. Combinational reasoning transfers ideas across domains to form unfamiliar combinations; exploratory reasoning searches for new solutions within an existing conceptual space; and transformational reasoning modifies the rules or constraints that define that space. This formalization yields distinct algorithmic procedures, which we instantiate in Universe of Thoughts (UoT), an LLM reasoning framework. Existing creativity benchmarks emphasize either open-ended ideation or highly constrained problem solving. We therefore introduce three novel creative-reasoning tasks requiring concrete solutions in low-constraint settings. Across 10 generations per method and task, T-UoT with GPT-4o performs strongest on the low-constraint, high-objective-specificity Bridge and Electricity tasks, while C-UoT shows its strongest relative performance on the low-constraint, lower-objective-specificity Society task. In addition, we evaluate UoT on HypoArena, an independent scientific hypothesis-generation benchmark with 100 tasks across biomedical, machine-learning, and social-science domains. With Qwen3-14B, Exploratory UoT ranks first among seven reasoning methods, achieving a 32.7% pairwise win rate compared with 25.5% for the next-best method. Our results suggest distinct performance patterns across task structures: T-UoT is strongest in low-constraint, high-specificity settings, E-UoT in more constrained, high-specificity settings, and C-UoT in low-constraint, lower-specificity settings.

Yuto Suzuki, Farnoush Banaei-Kashani

Department of Computer Science and Engineering University of Colorado Denver Denver, CO, USA

Computational Creativity Computational Cognitive Modeling Scientific Reasoning in Language Models

Oct 29, 2025

Gravity-Awareness: Deep Learning Models and LLM Simulation of Human Awareness in Altered Gravity

Earth s gravity fundamentally shapes human behaviour. The brain encodes this force as an internal model of gravity, enabling the prediction and interpretation of gravitational effects during perception and action. Understanding how this model adapts to altered gravity is critical for predicting human performance in spaceflight. We present a computational framework for modelling neurophysiological adaptation across diverse gravitational environments. The framework has two components trained on open-access data from altered-gravity studies, particularly parabolic flights. The first component (CorticalG) employs a lightweight multilayer perceptron neural network to predict gravity-dependent changes in EEG frequency bands, estimating cortical state under different gravitational loads. The second component (PhysioG) uses independent Gaussian process models to capture broader physiological responses, including heart rate variability, electrodermal activity, and motor control. To complement the quantitative modelling, we simulated subjective experience across gravitational environments using the Large Language Model (LLM) Claude 3.5 Sonnet. Physiological outputs prompted the model to generate narratives describing alertness, bodily awareness, and cognitive state across zero gravity, partial gravity of the Moon and Mars, and hypergravity. This framework provides a novel approach for investigating human adaptation to spaceflight. It offers a predictive tool to assess performance and resilience, supporting the design of future space exploration missions.

Bakytzhan Alibekov, Alina Gutoreva, Elisa Raffaella-Ferre

School of IT & Engineering, Kazakh-British Technical University, 050000, Tole bi 59, Almaty, Kazakhstan. · School of Psychological Sciences, Birkbeck University of London, Malet St, London WC1E 7HX, United Kingdom.

Computational Cognitive Modeling Human Behavior Simulation

Oct 13, 2025

People use fast and flat simulation to reason about new games

Games have long been a microcosm for studying planning and reasoning in both natural and artificial intelligence (AI), often focusing on expert-level or even super-human play. But real life also pushes human intelligence along a different frontier, requiring people to flexibly navigate decision-making problems that they have never thought about before. Here, we use novice gameplay to study how people reason about new problem settings. Through a series of large-scale behavioral studies with over 1000 participants and 121 two-player strategic board games (almost all novel to our participants), we show that people are systematic and adaptively rational in how they play a game for the first time, or evaluate a game (e.g., how fair or how fun it is likely to be) before they have played it even once. We explain these capacities via a computational cognitive model that we call the 'Intuitive Gamer', a model based on mechanisms of fast and flat (depth-limited) goal-directed probabilistic simulation. Our work offers new insights into how people rapidly evaluate, act, and make suggestions when encountering novel problems, and could inform the design of more flexible and human-like AI systems that can determine not just how to solve new tasks, but whether a task is worth thinking about at all.

Katherine M. Collins, Cedegao E. Zhang, Lionel Wong +6

Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, United States · Princeton University, Princeton, NJ, United States · University of Cambridge, Cambridge, United Kingdom +3

Computational Cognitive Modeling Human Behavior Simulation Bounded Rationality Decision-Making under Uncertainty

Aug 28, 2025

Meta-learning ecological priors from large language models explains human learning and decision making

Human cognition is profoundly shaped by the environments in which it unfolds. Yet, it remains an open question whether learning and decision making can be explained as a principled adaptation to the statistical structure of real-world tasks. We introduce ecologically rational analysis, a computational framework that unifies the normative foundations of rational analysis with ecological grounding. Leveraging large language models to generate ecologically valid cognitive tasks at scale, and using meta-learning to derive rational models optimized for these environments, we develop a new class of learning algorithms: Ecologically Rational Meta-learned Inference (ERMI). ERMI internalizes the statistical regularities of naturalistic problem spaces and adapts flexibly to novel situations, without requiring hand-crafted heuristics or explicit parameter updates. We show that ERMI captures human behavior across 15 experiments spanning function learning, category learning, and decision making, outperforming several established cognitive models in trial-by-trial prediction. Our results suggest that much of human cognition may reflect adaptive alignment to the ecological structure of the problems we encounter in everyday life.

Akshay K. Jagadish, Mirko Thalmann, Julian Coda-Forno +2

Institute for Human-Centered AI, Helmholtz Computational Health Center, Munich, Germany · Computational Principles of Intelligence, Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics, Tübingen, Germany · Eberhard Karls University of Tübingen, Tübingen, Germany +1

Computational Cognitive Modeling Meta-Learning Decision-Making under Uncertainty