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Marr's Levels Revisited: Understanding How Brains Break
Author(s) -
Hardcastle Valerie G.,
Hardcastle Kiah
Publication year - 2015
Publication title -
topics in cognitive science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.191
H-Index - 56
eISSN - 1756-8765
pISSN - 1756-8757
DOI - 10.1111/tops.12130
Subject(s) - cognition , cognitive science , psychology , context (archaeology) , impulsivity , focus (optics) , cognitive psychology , population , cognitive neuroscience , neuroscience , developmental psychology , sociology , biology , paleontology , physics , demography , optics
Abstract While the research programs in early cognitive science and artificial intelligence aimed to articulate what cognition was in ideal terms, much research in contemporary computational neuroscience looks at how and why brains fail to function as they should ideally. This focus on impairment affects how we understand David Marr's hypothesized three levels of understanding. In this essay, we suggest some refinements to Marr's distinctions using a population activity model of cortico‐striatal circuitry exploring impulsivity and behavioral inhibition as a case study. In particular, we urge that Marr's computational level should be redefined to include a description of how systems break down. We also underscore that feed‐forward processing, cognition disconnected from behavioral context, and representations do not always drive cognition in the way that Marr originally assumed.