[robwwilliams]

Not my area of expertise, but this paper may be important for the reason that it is more closely aligned with the “enactive” paradigm of understand brain-body-behavior and learning than a backpropogation-only paradigm.

(I like enactive models of perception such as those advocated by Alva Noe, Humberto Maturana, Francisco Valera, and others. They get us well beyond the straightjacket of Cartesian dualism.)

Rather than have error signals tweak synaptic weights after a behavior, a cognitive system generates a set of actions it predicts will accommodate needs. This can apparently be accomplished without requiring short term synaptic plasticity. Then if all is good, weights are modified in a secondary phase that is more about asserting utility of the “test” response. More selection than descent. The emphasis is more on feedforward modulation and selection. Clearly there must be error signal feedback so some if you may argue that the distinction will be blurry at some levels. Agreed.

Look forward to reading more carefully to see how far off-base I am.