Marchman's [1] framework for simulating sensitive periods in development was extended to investigate whether competition is a mechanism that might contribute to reductions in functional plasticity with age. Under this view, the ability to learn new behaviors is reduced when old established behaviors are unwilling to give up shared representational resources. The simulations supported this hypothesis, but indicated that a range of factors modulated competition effects: the similarity between old learning and new learning, the level of representational resources, the prevailing plasticity conditions within the system, the timing of introduction of new learning, and the complexity of the problem domain.
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