“… My interest is in whether we could enter more democratic forms of decision-making by using reliable memory and concept storage outside individual brains.” – archy
Of course, this too will be determined by whoever funds it, no?....’this’ meaning what is stored. On Sep 28, 9:38 am, archytas <[email protected]> wrote: > This is from this week's New Scientist. I've shortened it and > followed up the reference - it doesn't give a lot more other than > experimental methodology. > > The brain regions responsible for our ability to organise the world > into separate concepts have been pinpointed. > Forming a concept involves selecting the important characteristics of > our experiences and categorising them. The degree to which we are able > to do this effectively is a defining characteristic of human > intelligence. The method here was about showing fractal patterns and > getting people to forecast the weather on the basis of them. > Conceptual rules based on the positions and combinations of the > patterns governed whether the resulting outcome would be rain or sun, > but the volunteers were not told this. Instead correct predictions > were rewarded with cash prizes, encouraging the volunteers to deduce > these conceptual rules. In an initial learning phase, the different > possible combinations were repeatedly shown to the participants. While > they could make their predictions by simply memorising previous > outcomes, they could also begin to realise that rules based on the > positions and combinations of the patterns governed whether the result > would be rain or sun. In a second phase, the volunteers were provided > with less information to encourage them to apply the rules they had > identified. This enabled the researchers to separate those volunteers > who had formed the concept in the learning phase from those who > hadn't. > > During both experiments fMRI scanning was used to identify areas of > brain activity. In the first phase, researchers could tell if a > volunteer would go on to apply concepts in the second phase by the > degree of activity in their hippocampus, which is known to be > responsible for learning and memory. In the second phase, activity > centred on the ventromedial prefrontal cortex (vMPFC), important in > decision-making, was active. The team concluded that the hippocampus > creates and stores concepts, and passes this information onto the > vMPFC where it is put to use during the making of decisions. > Journal reference: Neuron, vol 63, p 889 > > Where the hippocampus is damaged, other brain areas may compensate if > the damage occurs early enough in life. This work may have medical > applications. I don't find it very interesting - but I do wonder > whether a better understanding of what we can know about how the brain > works might inform our discussions on such matters as consciousness, > morality and just what the 'Mind's Eye' might be. My interest is in > whether we could enter more democratic forms of decision-making by > using reliable memory and concept storage outside individual brains. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups ""Minds Eye"" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/minds-eye?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
