ASSC Seminar on "Temporal Binding, Binocular Rivalry and Consciousness"

[Patrick Wilken]

The Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC)
invites your attention to the electronic seminar:


TEMPORAL BINDING, BINOCULAR RIVALRY AND CONSCIOUSNESS


Seminar commences on December 1, 1997, and will be led by:

Andreas K. Engel

Target Paper: TEMPORAL BINDING, BINOCULAR RIVALRY AND CONSCIOUSNESS
    by Andreas K. Engel*, Pascal Fries, Pieter R. Roelfsema%,
    Peter Konig# and Wolf Singer

Max-Planck-Institute for Brain Research, 60528 Frankfurt, Germany
* Present address: Institute for Advanced Study, 14193 Berlin, Germany
% Graduate School Neurosciences, University of Amsterdam, and Netherlands
     Ophthalmic Research Institute, 1100AC Amsterdam, The Netherlands
# Institute for Neuroinformatics, University of Zurich, 8006 Zurich,
     Switzerland

Target paper is posted on the ASSC website for public access at
<http://www.phil.vt.edu/ASSC/>.  Our intention is to encourage and
support wide dissemination and discussion of the ideas generated in
the seminar, while protecting the electronic privacy of the panelists.

Seminar dialog will be available to the public, both over the ASSC
web site at <http://www.phil.vt.edu/ASSC/esem.html> and via the ASSC
seminar mailing list at ASSC-SEMINAR2 at LISTSERV.UH.EDU.

To subscribe to the seminar mailing list, send the request

SUB ASSC-SEMINAR2 <your name> to LISTSERV at LISTSERV.UH.EDU.


Abstract for the Seminar:

Cognitive functions like perception, memory, language or consciousness
are based on highly parallel and distributed information processing by
the brain. One of the major unresolved questions is how information can
be integrated and how coherent representational states can be estab-
lished in the distributed neuronal systems subserving these functions.
It has been suggested that this so-called "binding problem" may be
solved in the temporal domain. The hypothesis is that synchronization
of neuronal discharges can serve for the integration of distributed
neurons into cell assemblies and that this process may underlie the
selection of perceptually and behaviourally relevant information. As
we intend to show here, this temporal binding hypothesis has implica-
tions for the search of the neural correlate of consciousness. We
review experimental results, mainly obtained in the visual system,
which support the notion of temporal binding.  In particular, we
discuss recent experiments on the neural mechanisms of binocular
rivalry which suggest that appropriate synchronization among cortical
neurons may be one of the necessary conditions for the buildup of
perceptual states and awareness of sensory stimuli.


SCHEDULE FOR THE SEMINAR


NOVEMBER  10   --  ENGEL ET AL. TARGET PAPER DISTRIBUTED

DECEMBER 1-5   --  PARTICIPANTS COMMENTARIES DISTRIBUTED

DECEMBER   8   --  OPEN DISCUSSION COMMENCES

DECEMBER  19   --  BREAK FOR THE HOLIDAYS

JANUARY    5   --  SYNPOSIS PAPER DISTRIBUTED

JANUARY   12   --  OPEN DISCUSSION CONTINUES

JANUARY 19-23  --  CONCLUDING COMMENTS & FEEDBACK


Public dialog and feedback will be invited for a period of two to four
weeks following the conclusion of the seminar.


SEMINAR PARTICIPANTS:

Ian Gold, Australian National University
Anthony Grace, University of Pittsburgh
Christof Koch, California Institute of Technology
Kevin Sauve, New York University
Thomas Metzinger, Hanse Institute for Advanced Study
James Newman, Colorado Neurological Institute
Ernst Poeppel, Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich
Antti Revonsuo, University of Turku
John Taylor, King's College London


We are most grateful to the ASSC Seminar Committee for making this
electronic seminar possible. They include:

    Jim Newman, ASSC E-seminar Coordinator
    George Buckner, ASSC Network Coordinator
    Patrick Wilken, Editor, PSYCHE, Monash University
    Valerie Hardcastle, Webmaster

------
James Newman, Ph.D.
Colorado Neurological Institute
jnewman at bvinst.edu


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