Presentation Abstract June, 1997

BIOLOGICALLY DERIVED NEURODYNAMIC MODEL
OF IMPLICIT VS. EXPLICIT COGNITION

Walter J. Freeman
University of California, Berkeley

EEGs are measured from multiple cortical sites in animals engaged in intentional behavior induced by classical and appetitive conditioning. Analysis of the data indicates that perception occurs by construction of spatial patterns of neural activity through chaotic dynamics of primary sensory cortices (PSCs). These patterns are conditioned by bursts of input from the entorhinal cortex, that may constitute corollary discharges of commands for search in the processes of expectancy and attention. A theory of intentional behavior from these data holds that pattern construction in PSCs is shaped by their interactions with the limbic system following multisensory convergence into the entorhinal cortex and hippocampus. The time required for the dynamics of construction is consistent with measurements by Libet (1994) of delay in the onset of awareness. Construction is a circular process, in which cooperative activity of millions of neurons forms a macroscopic state, that acts as an order parameter to carry the neurons into a new global state in a perceptual state transition. Response latencies of animals are often shorter than that delay, so that awareness is not essential to perform correct responses (implicit cognition). The observed macroscopic state uniting the entorhinal and PSCs, comparable to Baars' (1996) 'global work space', may manifest consciousness. In this formulation, consciousness does not initiate action. It is an order parameter that assembles the perceptual consequences of previous action. By shaping the attractor landscape of the global PSC-limbic system (explicit cognition), it formulates the context of alternatives among which the limbic system selects its next action.
 

 

 

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