Consciousness and Complexity
04 Dec 1998-Science (American Association for the Advancement of Science)-Vol. 282, Iss: 5395, pp 1846-1851
TL;DR: Applying measures of neural integration and complexity, together with an analysis of extensive neurological data, leads to a testable proposal-the dynamic core hypothesis-about the properties of the neural substrate of consciousness.
Abstract: Conventional approaches to understanding consciousness are generally concerned with the contribution of specific brain areas or groups of neurons. By contrast, it is considered here what kinds of neural processes can account for key properties of conscious experience. Applying measures of neural integration and complexity, together with an analysis of extensive neurological data, leads to a testable proposal-the dynamic core hypothesis-about the properties of the neural substrate of consciousness.
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TL;DR: The major concepts and results recently achieved in the study of the structure and dynamics of complex networks are reviewed, and the relevant applications of these ideas in many different disciplines are summarized, ranging from nonlinear science to biology, from statistical mechanics to medicine and engineering.
9,441 citations
TL;DR: A wide variety of data on capacity limits suggesting that the smaller capacity limit in short-term memory tasks is real is brought together and a capacity limit for the focus of attention is proposed.
Abstract: Miller (1956) summarized evidence that people can remember about seven chunks in short-term memory (STM) tasks. How- ever, that number was meant more as a rough estimate and a rhetorical device than as a real capacity limit. Others have since suggested that there is a more precise capacity limit, but that it is only three to five chunks. The present target article brings together a wide vari- ety of data on capacity limits suggesting that the smaller capacity limit is real. Capacity limits will be useful in analyses of information processing only if the boundary conditions for observing them can be carefully described. Four basic conditions in which chunks can be identified and capacity limits can accordingly be observed are: (1) when information overload limits chunks to individual stimulus items, (2) when other steps are taken specifically to block the recoding of stimulus items into larger chunks, (3) in performance discontinuities caused by the capacity limit, and (4) in various indirect effects of the capacity limit. Under these conditions, rehearsal and long-term memory cannot be used to combine stimulus items into chunks of an unknown size; nor can storage mechanisms that are not capacity- limited, such as sensory memory, allow the capacity-limited storage mechanism to be refilled during recall. A single, central capacity limit averaging about four chunks is implicated along with other, noncapacity-limited sources. The pure STM capacity limit expressed in chunks is distinguished from compound STM limits obtained when the number of separately held chunks is unclear. Reasons why pure capacity estimates fall within a narrow range are discussed and a capacity limit for the focus of attention is proposed.
5,677 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that the most plausible candidate is the formation of dynamic links mediated by synchrony over multiple frequency bands.
Abstract: The emergence of a unified cognitive moment relies on the coordination of scattered mosaics of functionally specialized brain regions. Here we review the mechanisms of large-scale integration that counterbalance the distributed anatomical and functional organization of brain activity to enable the emergence of coherent behaviour and cognition. Although the mechanisms involved in large-scale integration are still largely unknown, we argue that the most plausible candidate is the formation of dynamic links mediated by synchrony over multiple frequency bands.
4,485 citations
TL;DR: It is argued that whereas long‐scale effects do reflect cognitive processing, short‐scale synchronies are likely to be due to volume conduction, and ways to separate such conduction effects from true signal synchrony are discussed.
Abstract: This article presents, for the first time, a practical method for the direct quantification of frequency-specific synchronization (i.e., transient phase-locking) between two neuroelectric signals. The motivation for its development is to be able to examine the role of neural synchronies as a putative mechanism for long-range neural integration during cognitive tasks. The method, called phase-locking statistics (PLS), measures the significance of the phase covariance between two signals with a reasonable time-resolution (,100 ms). Unlike the more traditional method of spectral coherence, PLS separates the phase and amplitude components and can be directly interpreted in the framework of neural integration. To validate synchrony values against background fluctuations, PLS uses surrogate data and thus makes no a priori assumptions on the nature of the experimental data. We also apply PLS to investigate intracortical recordings from an epileptic patient performing a visual discrimination task. We find large-scale synchronies in the gamma band (45 Hz), e.g., between hippocampus and frontal gyrus, and local synchronies, within a limbic region, a few cm apart. We argue that whereas long-scale effects do reflect cognitive processing, short-scale synchronies are likely to be due to volume conduction. We discuss ways to separate such conduction effects from true signal synchrony. Hum Brain Mapping 8:194-208, 1999. r 1999 Wiley-Liss, Inc.
3,397 citations
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References
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TL;DR: This final installment of the paper considers the case where the signals or the messages or both are continuously variable, in contrast with the discrete nature assumed until now.
Abstract: In this final installment of the paper we consider the case where the signals or the messages or both are continuously variable, in contrast with the discrete nature assumed until now. To a considerable extent the continuous case can be obtained through a limiting process from the discrete case by dividing the continuum of messages and signals into a large but finite number of small regions and calculating the various parameters involved on a discrete basis. As the size of the regions is decreased these parameters in general approach as limits the proper values for the continuous case. There are, however, a few new effects that appear and also a general change of emphasis in the direction of specialization of the general results to particular cases.
65,425 citations
TL;DR: Simple models of networks that can be tuned through this middle ground: regular networks ‘rewired’ to introduce increasing amounts of disorder are explored, finding that these systems can be highly clustered, like regular lattices, yet have small characteristic path lengths, like random graphs.
Abstract: Networks of coupled dynamical systems have been used to model biological oscillators, Josephson junction arrays, excitable media, neural networks, spatial games, genetic control networks and many other self-organizing systems. Ordinarily, the connection topology is assumed to be either completely regular or completely random. But many biological, technological and social networks lie somewhere between these two extremes. Here we explore simple models of networks that can be tuned through this middle ground: regular networks 'rewired' to introduce increasing amounts of disorder. We find that these systems can be highly clustered, like regular lattices, yet have small characteristic path lengths, like random graphs. We call them 'small-world' networks, by analogy with the small-world phenomenon (popularly known as six degrees of separation. The neural network of the worm Caenorhabditis elegans, the power grid of the western United States, and the collaboration graph of film actors are shown to be small-world networks. Models of dynamical systems with small-world coupling display enhanced signal-propagation speed, computational power, and synchronizability. In particular, infectious diseases spread more easily in small-world networks than in regular lattices.
39,297 citations
"Consciousness and Complexity" refers background in this paper
...Strikingly, these networks were very similar to the so-called ‘small world’ class of network in which dense groups of nodes are connected by a relatively small number of reciprocal ‘bridges’ [55]....
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..., neighboring nodes connect mainly to each other [55]) and had a long characteristic path length (i....
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TL;DR: In this article, the cross spectrum between two variables can be decomposed into two parts, each relating to a single causal arm of a feedback situation, and measures of causal lag and causal strength can then be constructed.
Abstract: There occurs on some occasions a difficulty in deciding the direction of causality between two related variables and also whether or not feedback is occurring. Testable definitions of causality and feedback are proposed and illustrated by use of simple two-variable models. The important problem of apparent instantaneous causality is discussed and it is suggested that the problem often arises due to slowness in recording information or because a sufficiently wide class of possible causal variables has not been used. It can be shown that the cross spectrum between two variables can be decomposed into two parts, each relating to a single causal arm of a feedback situation. Measures of causal lag and causal strength can then be constructed. A generalisation of this result with the partial cross spectrum is suggested.
16,349 citations
Additional excerpts
...It can be calculated by applying ‘Granger causality’ [67, 68], a statistical concept of causality that is based on prediction: If a signal x1 causes a signal x2, then past values of x1 should contain information that helps predict x2 above and beyond the information contained in past values of x2 alone [67]....
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Book•
01 Jan 1890
TL;DR: For instance, the authors discusses the multiplicity of the consciousness of self in the form of the stream of thought and the perception of space in the human brain, which is the basis for our work.
Abstract: Arguably the greatest single work in the history of psychology. James's analyses of habit, the nature of emotion, the phenomenology of attention, the stream of thought, the perception of space, and the multiplicity of the consciousness of self are still widely cited and incorporated into contemporary theoretical accounts of these phenomena.
14,049 citations
Book•
01 Jan 1965
TL;DR: This chapter discusses the concept of a Random Variable, the meaning of Probability, and the axioms of probability in terms of Markov Chains and Queueing Theory.
Abstract: Part 1 Probability and Random Variables 1 The Meaning of Probability 2 The Axioms of Probability 3 Repeated Trials 4 The Concept of a Random Variable 5 Functions of One Random Variable 6 Two Random Variables 7 Sequences of Random Variables 8 Statistics Part 2 Stochastic Processes 9 General Concepts 10 Random Walk and Other Applications 11 Spectral Representation 12 Spectral Estimation 13 Mean Square Estimation 14 Entropy 15 Markov Chains 16 Markov Processes and Queueing Theory
13,886 citations