Invariances in Human Information Processing

Thomas Lachmann, Tina Weis

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2018
• Print ISBN: 9781138048904
• eBook ISBN: 9781351690300
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: Cognitive Neuroscience & Neuropsychology
• Index: Psychology

Invariances in Human Information Processing examines and identifies processing universals and how they are implemented in elementary judgemental processes. This edited collection offers evidence that these universals can be extracted and identified from observing law-like principles in perception, cognition, and action. Addressing memory operations, development, and conceptual learning, this book considers basic and complex meso- and makro-stages of information processing. Chapter authors provide theoretical accounts of cognitive processing that may offer tools for identification of functional components in brain activity in cognitive neuroscience

Part I
Micro-Stages in Information Processing

Identification of Processing Universals

1
Deciphering the Time Code of the Brain

From Psychophysical Invariants to Universals of Neural Organization

Hans-Georg Geissler

UNIVERSITY OF LEIPZIG, GERMANY

Abstract

Behavioral and brain-based research into perception and cognition are at a point where global principles of dynamic process organization are becoming central. In this state of affairs, it proves to be a serious obstacle that a common theoretical language is missing which would allow translation of statements in terms of psychological concepts into statements referring to neurophysiological concepts, and vice versa. In the present paper an approach is put forth to overcome this obstacle. It is demonstrated that superordinate regularities in temporal performance characteristics surfacing within and across diverse task demands correspond uniquely to the structural composition of the underlying cyclic brain activity. Specifically, it is shown that the fine structures of psychophysically established temporal ranges quantitatively predict the order of EEG bands as well as the potential couplings among their components. In a probabilistic expansion, the same modular architecture is shown to account for Weber's Law in the time domain and for the upper limit of train length in cyclic timing. A particular advantage of the described option of drawing inferences about neural foundations from behavioral evidence is that it brings physiological observations into direct contact with a net of behaviorally established functional denotations that cannot be accessed in the narrow functional context of a specific neuroscientific paradigm. Provisional applications of the proposed rationale are presented to encourage its strategic use.

1.1 Introduction

For many, the mind-body problem of how conscious mind relates to its physical basis in the brain ranks among the last unresolved enigmas of mankind. Brought down to the level of empirical science, the cardinal difficulty is that concepts such as “sensation” or “thought” designate psychological phenomena that differ in qualitative respects from their presumed neural equivalents in the brain. Clearly, this incongruence between psychological and neurophysiological modes of description does not preclude the possibility to establish empirical relations between them. Yet in the absence of a superordinate framework allowing the delineation of one-to-one correspondences on the level of theoretical fundamentals such relations will inevitably remain to be of a correlative nature.

While there is no doubt about progress achieved along the lines of correlative relationships, there is an enduring hope for an overarching integrative approach catalyzing the synthesis of knowledge from behaviorally oriented and brain-related branches of research. Although widely unknown today, by introducing in his “Elements of Psychophysics” the concept of psychophysics as the “Exact Science of Mind-Body Relations,” G. T. Fechner (1860) was the first to insist upon the need for a unifying framework. As described in the second volume, this concept embraces “inner psychophysics” as the branch dealing with the inner, neural basis of mind in what he called the “psychophysical process”. Even less well known—in a fundamental assertion about the nature of the underlying processes—Fechner located the essence of mental activity in systems of oscillations within the nervous tissue and in their cooperation along principles of “solidarity” (pp. 452– 464). Note that through this hypothesis of a universal spatio-temporal wave code as carrier medium, neural representations of information become, in a specific way, linked back to psychologically described contents. With this proposition, Fechner set the goal of a framework on whose completion and testing behaviorally founded and substrate-oriented disciplines are invited to cooperate.

Yet now—more than 150 years after Fechner’s bold proposal and nearly 90 years after the discovery of oscillatory brain waves (Berger, 1929)—the prospects for a unified approach toward mind-body relations still appear rather mixed. True, in exceptional cases near-isomorphic correspondences have already been demonstrated, as in color perception by Izmailov and Sokolov (2004), though not yet on the level of a general representational system. But in the face of mountains of facts calling for a unified explanation, the need for a broad integrative account is appreciated. Also, in current attempts toward that goal there is increasing consent about a central role of general-purpose mechanisms of cyclic timing and synchrony—in agreement with Fechner’s vision. However, at the same time, what once was posited to constitute a unique field of inquiry today shows itself fragmented into a multitude of special areas and diverging concepts—with as yet no broadly accepted superordinate framework in sight.

In this situation, the majority of researchers decided to quietly wait for the multifaceted developments under way to automatically converge into one unified stream. In the present chapter, I oppose this stance by drawing attention to conceptual foundations that need be clarified before a decisive breakthrough can be expected. As will be argued, in order to safeguard free back-and-forth between behaviorally based and substrate-related access routes to cognition, one has to start from relevant global characteristics of the processing system: the brain. A second particularity by which the advocated position differs from common opinion is that in the current state of development, such characteristics can be extracted only as invariants from the task-related variation of perceptual-cognitive performance.

What shall be described in the present chapter, and what appears to be new, are substantial indications that human cognition is governed by a small number of constants and structural invariants in the real-time dynamics of the brain. The role that these universals are supposed to play in the control of performance as a function of task and stimulus conditions can thus be compared to the role that universal physical laws and constants play within the world at large. With the remarkable consequence that, when basing theory on the derived universals of brain activity, predictions of quantitative relations will be rendered possible for mental processes in absolute terms like in physics.

The following presentation falls into two parts. Part I provides a short introduction into conceptual and empirical prerequisites of our approach so far referred to by the mnemonic TQM, for Time Quantum Model—not a model in the usual sense, but a condensed scheme of cross-paradigmatic regularities of temporal organization conceived as an intermediate stage in the development of a dynamic theory. For easier access, primitives of TQM will be presented in a quasi-inductive way proceeding along stages of its stepwise design and revision. Readers interested in more extended reviews are referred to Geissler (2000) or Geissler and Kompass (2003).

Part II of the chapter will address its specific objective: Border-Crossing (BC) predictions, defined as predictions derived from behaviorally based statements of TQM about equivalents in terms of physiological observables. In a first step, this type of prediction will be applied to well-known basic formations of cyclic brain activity in the human electroencephalography (EEG). In a second step, the match attained between predicted and observed structures will then be adopted as an interim validation basis for more complex applications. Examples of such applications are presented in an informal sequence of thematic clusters bringing together general deliberations, testable hypotheses, and pieces of fragmentary evidence accumulated over years. This major and final section of the treatise will hopefully mark the beginning of broader interdisciplinary discussion.

1.2 Part I: Toward Time-Related Universals: A Brief Introduction to TQM

The empirical basis of TQM consists of common regularities in the spacing of preferred points in time characteristics of perceptual-cognitive performance across diverse tasks. Because of approximate integer-ratio relationships among their components, regularities of that kind will be referred to as quantal time structures (QTSs).

A few QTSs in the sense of this definition have over decades become quite popular in the psychological community through nonstandard experiments. As those experiments and the rules proposed for the description of their results played a catalytic role in the emergence of TQM, we start here from a short outline of, in our view, particularly relevant instances.

Precursors of TQM: Early Observations of Quantal Time Structures in Sensory Performance

QTSs whose analysis contributed to the development of TQM had their origin in investigations based on the idea of a privileged epoch or psychological moment, which all other facets of mental timing are derivatives of. The idea was first advanced by the biologist von Baer (1860; cf. 1864). It found its operationalization in identical fusion thresholds at 1/18 Hz, or 55.55 ms, for vision and audition (Lalanne, 1876). More definitely, but only in 1933, the prominent position of an epoch of that duration was established by Brecher (1933) fo...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• Preface
• PART I Micro-Stages in Information Processing: Identification of Processing Universals
• PART II Meso-Stages in Information Processing: Complex Processing Architectures
• PART III Macro-Stages of Information Processing: Transitions in Development and Learning
• PART IV Epilogue
• Contributors
• Index