Towards a unified model of cortical computation II: From control architecture to a model of consciousness
A. Lõrincz
Neural Network World
7,
137--152
(1997)
Abstract
The recently introduced Static and Dynamic State (SDS)
Feedback control scheme together with its
modified form, the Data Compression and Reconstruction
(DCR) architecture that performs pseudoinverse computation,
suggests a unified model of cortical processing
including consciousness.
The constraints of the model are outlined here
and the features of the cortical architecture
that are suggested and sometimes dictated by these constraints
are listed.
Constraints are imposed on cortical layers,
e.g., (1) the model prescribes a connectivity substructure
that is
shown to fit the main properties of the `basic neural circuit'
of the cerebral cortex (Shepherd and Koch, Douglas and
Martin In: The synaptic organization of the brain, Oxford Universi
ty Press, 1990),
and (2) the stability requirements of the pseudoinverse method
offer an explanation for the columnar organization of the cortex.
Constraints are also imposed on the hierarchy of cortical areas,
e.g., the proposed control architecture requires
computations of the control variables belonging to both
the `desired' and the `experienced' moves as well as
a `sign-proper' separation of feedback channels
that fit known
properties of the basal ganglia -- thalamocortical loops
. An outline is given as
to how the DCR scheme
can be extended towards a model for consciousness that can
deal with the `homunculus fallacy' by resolving the fallacy
and saving the homunculus as an inherited and learnt
partially ordered list of preferences.
