This is interesting because it challenges the discrete, stepped, Turing machine conception of thought with a continuous dynamics model. {If anyone knows of more stuff along these lines, I'd be v. interested]. Here's a pdf of Spivey's ideas. http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary;jsessionid=5E238B3B3E62E2AF7151EF8B31599E4D?doi=10.1.1.92.3260
ICBS SEMINAR Friday, November 7, 2008 11:am - 12:30 pm 5101 Tolman Hall Michael Spivey, Department of Cognitive Science, UC Merced "Continuous Temporal Dynamics in Real-time Cognition" Rather than a sequence of logical operations performed on discrete symbols, real-time cognition is better described as continuously changing patterns of neuronal activity. The continuity in these dynamics indicates that, in between describable states of mind, much of our mental activity does not lend itself to the linguistic labels relied on by much of psychology. I will discuss eye-tracking and computer-mouse-tracking evidence for this temporal continuity in spoken word recognition, sentence comprehension, categorization, and even decision-making. I will also provide geometric visualizations of mental activity depicted as a continuous trajectory through a neuronal state space. In this theoretical framework, close visitations of labeled attractors may constitute word recognition events and object recognition events, but the majority of the mental trajectory traverses unlabeled regions of state space, resulting in multifarious mixtures of mental states. For more about ICBS: http://icbs.berkeley.edu/ --- Josephine O'Shaughnessy -Human Resources Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute (HWNI) 3210F Tolman Hall MC 3192 University of California, Berkeley Berkeley, CA 94720 ph (510) 643-1274 fax: off-campus (510) 666-2593 fax: on-campus 6-2593 ------------------------------------------- agi Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/303/=now RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/303/ Modify Your Subscription: https://www.listbox.com/member/?member_id=8660244&id_secret=117534816-b15a34 Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com