Imperial College London
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ProfessorAbbasEdalat

Faculty of Engineering, Department of Computing

Professor in Computer Science & Maths
 
 
 
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Contact

 

+44 (0)20 7594 8245a.edalat Website

 
 
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Location

 

420Huxley BuildingSouth Kensington Campus

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Summary

 

Publications

Citation

BibTex format

@article{Cittern:2018:10.1371/journal.pone.0193955,
author = {Cittern, D and Nolte, T and Friston, K and Edalat, A},
doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0193955},
journal = {PLoS ONE},
title = {Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators of attachment under active inference},
url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193955},
volume = {13},
year = {2018}
}
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RIS format (EndNote, RefMan)

TY  - JOUR
AB  - rs    Metrics    Comments    Media Coverage    Abstract    Introduction    Materials and methods    Results    Discussion    Supporting information    Acknowledgments    References    Reader Comments (0)    Media Coverage (0)    FiguresAbstractThis paper addresses the formation of infant attachment types within the context of active inference: a holistic account of action, perception and learning in the brain. We show how the organised forms of attachment (secure, avoidant and ambivalent) might arise in (Bayesian) infants. Specifically, we show that these distinct forms of attachment emerge from a minimisation of free energy—over interoceptive states relating to internal stress levels—when seeking proximity to caregivers who have a varying impact on these interoceptive states. In line with empirical findings in disrupted patterns of affective communication, we then demonstrate how exteroceptive cues (in the form of caregiver-mediated AMBIANCE affective communication errors, ACE) can result in disorganised forms of attachment in infants of caregivers who consistently increase stress when the infant seeks proximity, but can have an organising (towards ambivalence) effect in infants of inconsistent caregivers. In particular, we differentiate disorganised attachment from avoidance in terms of the high epistemic value of proximity seeking behaviours (resulting from the caregiver’s misleading exteroceptive cues) that preclude the emergence of coherent and organised behavioural policies. Our work, the first to formulate infant attachment in terms of active inference, makes a new testable prediction with regards to the types of affective communication errors that engender ambivalent attachment.
AU  - Cittern,D
AU  - Nolte,T
AU  - Friston,K
AU  - Edalat,A
DO  - 10.1371/journal.pone.0193955
PY  - 2018///
SN  - 1932-6203
TI  - Intrinsic and extrinsic motivators of attachment under active inference
T2  - PLoS ONE
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0193955
UR  - http://hdl.handle.net/10044/1/58620
VL  - 13
ER  -
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