Controlled and automatic processing in animals and machines with application to autonomous vehicle control

Abstract

There are two modes of control recognised in the cognitive psychological literature. Controlled processing is slow, requires serial attention to sub-tasks, and requires effortful memory retrieval and decision making. In contrast automatic control is less effortful, less prone to interference from simultaneous tasks, and is driven largely by the current stimulus. Neurobiological analogues of these are goal-directed and habit-based behaviour respectively. Here, we suggest how these control modes might be deployed in an engineering solution to Automatic Vehicle Control. We present pilot data on a first step towards instantiating automatised control in the architecture, and suggest a synergy between the engineering and biological investigation of this dual-process approach.