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영어

The living organisms detect various stimuli from the environment, process these environmental information to recognize their circumferences, and make behavioral decision. The chemosensory information including gustatory and olfactory information is most important for the living organisms to survive the harsh environment. The models describing the highly efficient environmental responding mechanisms of living organisms can be used as control algorithms in the field of systems engineering. To realize this biomimetic intelligent control, we require a stripped-down model that expresses a series of information processing tasks from stimulation input to movement. We selected Paramecium caudatun as a target organism because it has a relatively simple organizational structure, which can be characterized using biochemical,
behavioral and electrophysiological analyses. We particularly focused on a motility response known as chemotaxis and developed a computer model that includes not only lectrophysiological information processing but also cilia control. After confirming the effectiveness and validity of the proposed model by a series of computer simulations, we applied it to a mobile robot control problem. Furthermore, we analyzed the odor discrimination of the mice by Y-maze behavioral assay to obtain a new knowledge on the olfactory information process system. The mice were able to discriminate the odor of learned red wine from the odors of other liquor except for the different brand red wine with the similar odorant component like the sommelier. In the case to discriminate learned red wine from the different brand red wine, the responses were divided into 3 groups, discriminate correctly, discriminate incorrectly, cannot discriminate. These individualities were also observed in the behavior analysis using known pure substance. These results show that the mice discriminate the odors by attending to the part of odor information which received the mouse, and that the selection of the information called
“selective attention” which recognized in visual sense and auditory system take place in the olfactory system. Olfactory stimulus is composed of a combination of 400 thousands kinds of odorant molecules. Processing all olfactory information is usually a time-consuming way. When the source of the odor is associated with natural enemies or harmful substances, this delay may become fatal to living organisms. Selective attention would be able to reduce the dimension of olfactory information and information processing time. Furthermore, selective attention in olfactory system could be modified through the learning experiences. Elucidating the algorithm of olfactory selective attention would be effective for an application to the control algorithm for the systems with a large number of observable variables.