  Trained recurrent networks are powerful tools for modeling dynamic neural
computations. We present a target-based method for modifying the full
connectivity matrix of a recurrent network to train it to perform tasks
involving temporally complex input/output transformations. The method
introduces a second network during training to provide suitable "target"
dynamics useful for performing the task. Because it exploits the full recurrent
connectivity, the method produces networks that perform tasks with fewer
neurons and greater noise robustness than traditional least-squares (FORCE)
approaches. In addition, we show how introducing additional input signals into
the target-generating network, which act as task hints, greatly extends the
range of tasks that can be learned and provides control over the complexity and
nature of the dynamics of the trained, task-performing network.
