On 16 Jul 1999 13:57:37 GMT, didier at Glue.umd.edu (Didier A. Depireux)
wrote:
>Richard Hall (rhall at uvi.edu) wrote:
>: This is getting nowhere, slowly and painfully.
>: If one assumes that natural selection acts on phenotypes resulting in
>: improved fitness, it seems reasonable to assume that anything not
>: contributing to fitness would be eliminated.
>>I think that part of the idea that we need only 10 % blahblahblah, is that
>at some point you might need 100%, while you are developing and making
>connections, but once all the circuitry is established and you just cruise
>through life, you only need 10% of what is there.
>snipped
>> Didier
Precisely. The is much research that show that when learning a new
task all areas of our brains become involved, even those not normally
associated with the actions required as the brain consciously sets
about learning the actions required. At these times the brain does
not behave like a collection of isolated pathways, each doing their
own thing as is normally the case, but rather as a coherent system.
Then as we begin to get a handle on the task the number of brain
regions involved diminishes until only the bare necessities required
'light up" when the task is performed. Effectively, the brain
establishes a "template" or "habit" that can produce the same
behaviour as if it were still going through all the hoops of being
consciously aware, but in reality no 'conscious" input is involved.
These might be of interest in this regard:
"The neural correlates of consciousness: an analysis of cognitive
skill learning"
. Raichie Marcus E, Philosophical Transactions of the
Royal Society London B, vol 353, p 1889 (1998)
"The basal ganglia and chunking of action
repertoires"
Graybiel Ann M., Neurobiology of
Learning and Memory, vol 70, p 119 (1998)
"The time course of changes during motor
sequence learning: a whole-brain fMRI study"
Toni Ivan et al, Neurolmage, vol 8, p 50(1998)
Ian
