Surfing Uncertainty (Andy Clark)

3 flashcards · Biology · by lakesare

1. What stream is enhanced when we pay high or low attention to stimulus?

   High attention means that perception is mostly based on the bottom-up stream, since every little deviation is registering an error and so the overall perceptual picture is highly constrained by sensation. Low attention means that perception is mostly based on the top-down stream, and you’re perceiving only a vague outline of the sensory image with your predictions filling in the rest. Attention simply means 'turn up the gain on these neurons'.

2. Expectation unit - deep pyramidal cells? Prediction error unit - superficial pyramidal cells.

3. What's efferent copy?

   An internal copy of an outflowing (efferent), movement-producing signal generated by an organism's motor system. In the mormyrid electric fish corollary discharges enables the knollenorgan sensor (KS) to detect the electric organ discharges of other fish without also detecting their own self generated electric organ discharges. The first person to propose the existence of efferent copies was the German physician and physicist Hermann von Helmholtz in the middle of the 19th century. He argued th…