# Decisional Processes With Boolean Neural Network: The Emergence Of Mental Schemes ∗

Graziano Barnabei Dept. of Systems and Computer Science, University of Florence, via S. Marta 3.

50139 Firenze, Italy; CSDC, Via G. Sansone, 1. 50019 Sesto F.no, Firenze, Italy.

email: grbarnabei@gmail.com; Franco Bagnoli Dept. of Energy, University of Florence, via S. Marta 3. 50139 Firenze, Italy; CSDC and INFN, sez. Firenze. email: franco.bagnoli@unifi.it; Ciro Conversano, Elena Lensi Dept. of Psychiatry, Neurobiology, Pharmacology and Biotechnology, University of Pisa, Via Roma, 67. 56126 Pisa, Italy.

Human decisional processes result from the employment of selected quantities of relevant information, generally synthesized from environmental incoming data and stored memories. Their main goal is the production of an appropriate and adaptive response to a cognitive or behavioral task. Different strategies of response production can be adopted, among which haphazard trials, formation of mental schemes and heuristics. In **this paper, we propose a model of Boolean neural network that incorporates these**
strategies by recurring to global optimization strategies during the learning session. The model characterizes as well the passage from an unstructured/chaotic attractor neural network typical of data-driven processes to a faster one, forward-only and representative of schema-driven processes.

Moreover, a simplified version of the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) is introduced in order to test the model. Our results match with experimental data and point out some relevant knowledge coming from psychological domain.

PACS numbers: 87.85.dq arXiv:1001.1257v1 [cs.AI] 8 Jan 2010