Csaba Pleh
Cognitive Science Group
Department of Psychology
Attila Jozsef University, Szeged
Petofi sgt 30-34, 6722 Hungary
Phone: (36)(62) 454000, extension 3273
Home: Budakeszi Zichy P. u. 4 2092 Hungary, (36)(23) 453932 or 933
Editor, Hungarian Review of Psychology
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 17:14:18 +0100
From: Stevan Harnad <harnad(a)coglit.ecs.soton.ac.uk>
Reply-To: "PSYC: PSYCOLOQUY: Refereed Electronic Journal of Peer Discussion
in" <PSYC(a)PUCC.BITNET>
To: Multiple recipients of list PSYC <PSYC(a)PUCC.BITNET>
Subject: 4 BBS Calls for Commentary
Resent-Date: Thu, 15 Jul 99 18:13:39 +100
Resent-Date: Thu, 15 Jul 1999 18:16:26 +0100
Resent-From: <pleh(a)ludens.elte.hu>
Resent-To: pleh(a)sol.cc.u-szeged.hu
Resent-To: <pleh(a)izabell.elte.hu>
Below are the abstracts of 3 forthcoming BBS target articles
and the Precis for one BBS multiple book review:
(1) NEOCORTICAL DYNAMIC FUNCTION AND EEG (Nunez)
(2) SPEECH RECOGNITION: FEEDBACK IS NEVER NECESSARY (Norris et al.)
(3) LOCALIST CONNECTIONISM: BBS Call for Commentators (Page)
(4) Neural Organization: (Arbib/Erdi/Szentagothai) [BOOK FOR REVIEW]]
These articles have been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing
Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in
the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences.
Commentators must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate. To
be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other
appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS
Associate, please send EMAIL by May 14th to:
bbs(a)cogsci.soton.ac.uk
or write to:
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
ECS: New Zepler Building
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/
ftp://ftp.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/pub/bbs/
gopher://gopher.princeton.edu:70/11/.libraries/.pujournals
If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a
BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is
familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and
commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates.
To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give
some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring
your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator.
An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection
with a WWW browser, anonymous ftp or gopher according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract. PLEASE SPECIFY WHICH
ARTICLE YOU HAVE IN MIND:
(1) Nunez
(2) Norris
(3) Page
(4) Arbib (multiple book review)
_____________________________________________________________
TOWARD A QUANTITATIVE DESCRIPTION OF LARGE SCALE
NEOCORTICAL DYNAMIC FUNCTION AND EEG.
Paul L. Nunez
Permanent Address:
Brain Physics Group,
Dept. of Biomedical Engineering,
Tulane University,
New Orleans,
Louisiana 70118
pnunez(a)mailhost.tcs.tulane.edu
Temporary Address (6/98 - 6/00):
Brain Sciences Institute,
Swinburne University of Technology,
400 Burwood Road,
Melbourne,
Victoria 3122,
Australia
pnunez(a)mind.scan.swin.edu.au
ABSTRACT: A conceptual framework for large-scale neocortical dynamic
behavior is proposed. It is sufficiently general to embrace brain
theories applied to different experimental designs, spatial scales
and brain states. This framework, based on the work of many
scientists, is constructed from anatomical, physiological and EEG
data. Neocortical dynamics and correlated behavioral/cognitive brain
states are viewed in the context of partly distinct, but interacting
local (regionally specific) processes and globally coherent
dynamics. Local and regional processes (eg, neural networks) are
enabled by functional segregation; global processes are facilitated
by functional integration. Global processes can also facilitate
synchronous activity in remote cell groups (top down) which function
simultaneously at several different spatial scales. At the same
time, local processes may help drive (bottom up) macroscopic global
dynamics observed with EEG (or MEG).
A specific, physiologically based local/global dynamic theory is
outlined in the context of this general conceptual framework. It is
consistent with a body of EEG data and fits naturally within the
proposed conceptual framework. The theory is incomplete since its
physiological control parameters are known only approximately. Thus,
brain state-dependent contributions of local versus global dynamics
cannot be predicted. It is also neutral on properties of neural
networks, assumed to be embedded within macroscopic fields.
Nevertheless, the purely global part of the theory makes
qualitative, and in a few cases, semi-quantitative predictions of
the outcomes of several disparate EEG studies in which global
contributions to the dynamics appear substantial. Experimental data
are used to obtain a variety of measures of traveling and standing
wave phenomena, predicted by the pure global theory. The more
general local/global theory is also proposed as a "meta-theory," a
suggestion of what large-scale quantitative theories of neocortical
dynamics may be like when more accurate treatment of local and
non-linear effects is achieved.
In the proposed local/global theory, the dynamics of excitatory and
inhibitory synaptic action fields are described. EEG and MEG are
believed to provide large-scale estimates of modulation of these
synaptic fields about background levels. Brain state is determined
by neuromodulatory control parameters. Some states are dominated by
local cell groups, in which EEG frequencies are due to local
feedback gains and rise and decay times of post-synaptic potentials.
Local frequencies vary with brain location. Other states are
strongly global, with multiple, closely spaced EEG frequencies, but
identical at each cortical location. Coherence at these frequencies
is high over large distances. The global mode frequencies are due to
a combination of delays in cortico-cortical axons and neocortical
boundary conditions. Many states involve dynamic interactions
between local networks and the global system, in which case observed
EEG frequencies may involve "matching" of local resonant frequencies
with one or more of the global frequencies.
KEYWORDS: EEG, neocortical dynamics, standing waves, functional
integration, spatial scale, binding problem, synchronization,
coherence, cell assemblies, limit cycles, pacemakers
_____________________________________________________________
MERGING INFORMATION IN SPEECH RECOGNITION:
FEEDBACK IS NEVER NECESSARY
Dennis Norris
Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit,
15, Chaucer Rd.,
Cambridge, CB2 2EF, U.K.
Dennis.Norris(a)mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/
James M. McQueen and Anne Cutler
Max-Planck-Institute for Psycholinguistics,
Wundtlaan 1, 6525 XD Nijmegen,
The Netherlands
James.McQueen(a)mpi.nl and Anne.Cutler(a)mpi.nl
http://www.mpi.nl
ABSTRACT: Top-down feedback does not benefit speech recognition; on
the contrary, it can hinder it. No experimental data imply that
feedback loops are required for speech recognition. Feedback is
accordingly unnecessary and spoken word recognition is modular. To
de fend this thesis we analyse lexical involvement in phonemic
decision-making. TRACE (McClelland & Elman 1986), a model with
feedback from the lexicon to prelexical processes, is unable to
account for all the available data on phonemic decision-making. The
modular Race model (Cutler & Norris 1979) is likewise challenged by
some recent results however. We therefore present a new modular
model of phonemic decision-making, the Merge model. In Merge,
information flows from prelexical processes to the lexicon without
feedback. Because phonemic decisions are based on the merging of
prelexical and lexical information, Merge correctly predicts
lexical involvement in phonemic decisions in both words and
nonwords. Computer simulations show how Merge is able to account
for the data through a process of competition between lexical
hypotheses. We discuss the issue of feedback in other areas of
language processing, and conclude that modular models are
particularly well suited to the problems and constraints of speech
recognition.
KEYWORDS: feedback, modularity, phonemic decisions, lexical
processing, computational modelling, word recognition, speech
recognition, reading,
_____________________________________________________________
CONNECTIONIST MODELLING IN PSYCHOLOGY:
A LOCALIST MANIFESTO
Mike Page
Medical Research Council Cognition and Brain Sciences Unit,
15, Chaucer Rd.,
Cambridge, CB2 2EF, U.K.
mike.page(a)mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk
http://www.mrc-cbu.cam.ac.uk/
ABSTRACT: Over the last decade, fully-distributed models have become
dominant in connectionist psychological modelling, whereas the virtues
of localist models have been underestimated. This target article
illustrates some of the benefits of localist modelling. Localist models
are characterized by the presence of localist representations rather
than the absence of distributed representations. A generalized localist
model is proposed that exhibits many of the properties of fully
distributed models. It can be applied to a number of problems that are
difficult for fully distributed models and its applicability can be
extended through comparisons with a number of classic mathematical
models of behaviour. There are reasons why localist models have been
underused and thes e are addressed. In particular, many conclusions
about connectionist representation, based on neuroscientific
observation, are called into question. There are still some problems
inherent in the application of fully distributed systems and some
inadequacies in proposed solutions to these problems. In the domain of
psychological modelling, localist modelling is to be preferred.
KEYWORDS: connectionist modelling, neural networks, localist,
distributed, competition, choice, reaction-time, consolidation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Subject: Neural Organization: BBS call for Multiple Reveiw
Below is the abstract of the Precis of a book that will shortly be
circulated for Multiple Book Review in Behavioral and Brain
Sciences (BBS):
PRECIS FOR Structure, Function, and Dynamics: An Integrated
Approach to Neural Organization :BBS MULTIPLE BOOK REVIEW
by Michael Arbib, Peter Erdi and John Szentagothai
This book has been accepted for a muliple book review to be published
in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international,
interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important
and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive
sciences.
Reviewers must be BBS Associates or nominated by a BBS Associate.
(All prior BBS referees, editors, authors, and commentators are also
equivalent to Associates.) To be considered as a reviewer for this
article, to suggest other appropriate reviewers, or for information
about how to become a BBS Associate, please send EMAIL to, BEFORE
August 13, 1999:
bbs(a)cogsci.soton.ac.uk
or write to:
Behavioral and Brain Sciences
ECS: New Zepler Building
University of Southampton
Highfield, Southampton
SO17 1BJ UNITED KINGDOM
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/
If you are not a BBS Associate, please send your CV and the name of a
BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is
familiar with your work. All past BBS authors, referees and
commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates.
To help us put together a balanced list of reviewers, please give
some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring
your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a reviewer.
An electronic draft of the full text is available for inspection
with a WWW browser, anonymous ftp or gopher according to the
instructions that follow after the abstract. Please also specify
1) If you need the book
2) whether you can make it by the deadline of October 15, 1999.
Please note that it is the book, not the Precis, that is to be reviewed.
It would be helpful if you indicated in your reply whether you already
have the book or would require a copy.
_____________________________________________________________
PRECIS OF:
Structure, Function, and Dynamics: An Integrated Approach
to Neural Organization BBS MULTIPLE BOOK REVIEW
Michael Arbib
Director, USC Brain Project,
University of Southern California Los Angeles,
CA 90089-2520 USA.
Arbib(a)pollux.usc.edu
Peter Erdi
Head, Dept. Biophysics
KFKI Research Institute for Particle and Nuclear Physics of the
Hungarian Academy of Sciences
H-1525 Budapest, P.O. Box 49, Hungary.
erdi(a)rmki.kfki.hu
ABSTRACT: "Neural Organization: Structure, Function, and
Dynamics" (Arbib, Erdi, and Szentagothai, 1997, Cambridge, MA:
The MIT Press; henceforth Organization) shows how theory and
experiment can supplement each other in an integrated, evolving
account of structure, function, and dynamics. New data lead to
new models; new models suggest the design of new experiments.
Much of modern neuroscience seems excessively reductionist,
focusing on the study of ever smaller microsystems with little
appreciation of their contribution to the behaving organism. We
welcome these new data but are concerned to restore some
equilibrium between systems, cellular, and molecular
neuroscience. After a brief tribute to our late colleague John
Szentagothai, we trace the threads of Structure, Function and
Dynamics as they weave through the book, thus providing a broad
general framework for the integration of computational and
empirical neuroscience. Part II of Organization presents a
structural analysis of various brain regions - olfactory bulb and
cortex, hippocampus, cerebral cortex, cerebellum, and basal
ganglia - as prelude to our account of the dynamics of the neural
circuits and function of each region. To exemplify this approach,
this prcis analyzes the hippocampus in anatomical, dynamical, and
functional terms. We conclude by pointing the way to the use of
our methodology in the development of Cognitive Neuroscience.
KEYWORDS: neural organization, dynamics, Szentgothai,
computational neuroscience, neural modeling, modular
architectonics, neural plasticity, hippocampus, rhythmogenesis,
cognitive maps, memory.
____________________________________________________________
To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for
this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the World Wide
Web or by anonymous ftp from the US or UK BBS Archive.
Ftp instructions follow below. Please do not prepare a commentary on
this draft. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant
expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the
article.
The URLs you can use to get to the BBS Archive:
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.arbib.html
or norris.html page.html nunez.html
------------------------------------------------------------------
*** FIVE IMPORTANT ANNOUNCEMENTS ***
(1) There have been some very important developments in the
area of Web archiving of scientific papers very recently.
Please see:
Science:
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/science.html
Nature:
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/nature.html
American Scientist:
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/~harnad/amlet.html
Chronicle of Higher Education:
http://www.chronicle.com/free/v45/i04/04a02901.htm
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(2) All authors in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences are
strongly encouraged to archive all their papers (on their
Home-Servers as well as) on CogPrints:
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk/
It is extremely simple to do so and will make all of our papers
available to all of us everywhere at no cost to anyone.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(3) BBS has a new policy of accepting submissions electronically.
Authors can specify whether they would like their submissions
archived publicly during refereeing in the BBS under-refereeing
Archive, or in a referees-only, non-public archive.
Upon acceptance, preprints of final drafts are moved to the
public BBS Archive:
ftp://ftp.princeton.edu/pub/harnad/BBS/.WWW/index.html
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/
--------------------------------------------------------------------
(4) BBS has expanded its annual page quota and is now appearing
bimonthly, so the service of Open Peer Commentary can now be be
offered to more target articles. The BBS refereeing procedure is
also going to be considerably faster with the new electronic
submission and processing procedures. Authors are invited to submit
papers to:
Email: bbs(a)cogsci.soton.ac.uk
Web:
http://cogprints.soton.ac.uk
http://bbs.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/
INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS:
http://www.princeton.edu/~harnad/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html
http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/instructions.for.authors.html
---------------------------------------------------------------------
(5) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review
In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) journal had only
been able to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because
of our limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota
will make it possible for us to increase the number of books we
treat per year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and
biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you
would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review.
(Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the
basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you
indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you
nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of
potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential
impact!).