Stephen Grossberg

Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems
Center for Adaptive Systems
Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science, and Technology
Boston University
http://cns-web.bu.edu/~steve/

Friday, October 30

12-1:30pm

HOW DOES A BRAIN GIVE RISE TO A MIND?
From Vision to Cognition


Major progress has been made during the past few decades in modeling how

brains give rise to minds. Such models link brain mechanisms to

behavioral functions, and predict brain representations of conscious and

unconscious experiences, including links between behavior, neuroanatomy,

neurophysiology, biophysics, and biochemistry. These models hereby

contribute to solving the classical Mind/Body Problem. This progress has

been included discovery of new computational paradigms whereby advanced

brains autonomously adapt in real time to a changing world filled with

unexpected events. These new paradigms include Complementary Computing,

which clarifies the nature of brain specialization, and Laminar

Computing, which clarifies why mammalian neocortex uses laminar circuits

to represent multiple types of higher intelligence.

The talk will provide a self-contained introduction to these ideas. It

will discuss new concepts, data explanations, and predictions that have

clarified brain processes underlying visual form and motion perception;

attentive visual object category learning, recognition, and search; and

attentive cognitive processing of event sequences during serial recall,

free recall, and speech categorization, notably how future auditory

context can influence how past sounds are heard. The talk will outline

how processes of Consciousness, Learning, Expectation, Attention,

Resonance, and Synchrony (CLEARS) interact to enable fast learning

without catastrophic forgetting, and illustrate the prediction that “all

conscious states are resonant states”. It will propose how multiple

levels of brain organization cooperate to realize predictive and

attentive cognitive processing: single cell properties, such as spiking

dynamics and spike-timing-dependent plasticity (STDP); laminar thalamic

and cortical circuit designs and their interactions; current-source

densities and local field potentials; and gamma and beta frequency

oscillations. The talk will also summarize why declarative experiences

may be conscious but procedural and priming experiences may not, and

will mention applications to large-scale technological problems.

Illustrative references (see http://cns.bu.edu/~steve)

Fazl, A., Grossberg, S., and Mingolla, E. (2009). View-invariant object

category learning, recognition, and search: How spatial and object

attention are coordinated using surface-based attentional shrouds.

Cognitive Psychology, 58, 1-48.

Grossberg, S. (1999). The link between brain learning, attention, and

consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 8, 1-44.

Grossberg, S. (2007). Consciousness CLEARS the mind. Neural Networks, 20:

1040-1053.

Grossberg, S. (2009). Beta oscillations and hippocampal place cell

learning during exploration of novel environments. Hippocampus, in press.

Grossberg, S., & Huang, T.-R. (2009). ARTSCENE: A neural system for

natural scene classification. Journal of Vision, 9, 1-19

Grossberg, S. and Pearson, L. (2008). Laminar cortical dynamics of

cognitive and motor working memory, sequence learning and performance:

Toward a unified theory of how the cerebral cortex works. Psychological

Review, 115, 677-732.

Grossberg, S. and Seidman, D. (2006). Neural dynamics of autistic

behaviors: Cognitive, emotional, and timing substrates. Psychological

Review, 113, 483-525.

Grossberg, S. and Versace, M. (2008). Spikes, synchrony, and attentive

learning by laminar thalamocortical circuits. Brain Research, 1218, 278-312.

*************