The Link Between Brain Learning, Attention, and Consciousness

Stimulus onset asynchrony and the timeline of word recognition: Event-related potentials during sentence reading

“…From 50 to 90 ms, ERPs over posterior sites revealed a very early effect of predictability (cf., Fig 8B). We proposed that the effect reflects rapid verification of pre-activated mental representations of expected words with the actual physical input; that is, shortly after the visual signal reaches the cortex, neural activity differentiates predictions matching the incoming visual signal from those producing a mismatch (cf., DeLong et al, 2005;Gilbert & Sigman, 2007;Grossberg, 1999;Mumford, 1992;Ullman, 1995;Van Berkum et al, 2005;Wicha et al, 2003Wicha et al, , 2004.…”

“…Consequently, there is room for potential interactions between top-down information and early sensory input, such that pre-activated representations of expected words affect bottom-up stimulus processing shortly after the incoming signal is available (cf., Gilbert & Sigman, 2007;Grossberg, 1999;Mumford, 1992;Ullman, 1995).…”

View-invariant object category learning, recognition, and search: How spatial and object attention are coordinated using surface-based attentional shrouds

“…A biologically relevant learning mechanism needs to be able to function during both unsupervised and supervised learning conditions, including situations when unsupervised learning trials are mixed with supervised learning trials in unpredictable ways. We use an Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART, category learning and recognition model to realize this property (Carpenter & Grossberg, 1987, Carpenter & Grossberg, 1993, Carpenter, Grossberg, Markuzon, Reynolds & Rosen, 1992, Grossberg, 1980a, Grossberg, 1999b. In order to learn and recall a category's name during supervised learning trials, the model incorporates teaching signals that can activate name categories, to which the object categories can be linked by means of associative learning (Figure 3g).…”

Bodily self-consciousness, and the primacy of self related signals such as the 1stperson perspective and self-location

“…On sheer speculation, the second possibility seems more likely. Certainly, the importance to consciousness of binding information across wide regions of the brain has been discussed before (e.g., Baars, 1983;Crick & Koch, 1990;Damasio, 1990;Engel & Singer, 2001;Grossberg, 1999;Lamme, 2006;Llinas & Ribary, 1994;Newman & Baars, 1993;Treisman, 1988;von der Malsburg, 1997). From the perspective of information theory, it has been suggested that consciousness is massively linked information (Tononi, 2008;Tononi & Edelman, 1998).…”