Combined Model for Sensory-Based and Feedback-Based Task Switching: Solving Hierarchical Reinforcement Learning Problems Statically and Dynamically with Transfer Learning

An integral function of fully autonomous robots and humans is the ability to focus attention on a few relevant percepts to reach a certain goal while disregarding irrelevant percepts. Humans and animals rely on the interactions between the Pre-Frontal Cortex (PFC) and the Basal Ganglia (BG) to achieve this focus called Working Memory (WM). The Working Memory Toolkit (WMtk) was developed based on a computational neuroscience model of this phenomenon with Temporal Difference (TD) Learning for autonomous systems. Recent adaptations of the toolkit either utilize Abstract Task Representations (ATRs) to solve Feedback-Based (FB) tasks or storage of past input features to solve Sensory-Based (SB) tasks, but not both. We propose a new model, SBFBWMtk, which combines both approaches, ATRs and input storage, with a static or dynamic number of ATRs. The results of our experiments show that SBFBWMtk performs effectively for tasks that exhibit SB, FB, or both properties.