Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
FIGURES 3-6
from the nerve cells first to receive auditory stimuli (cochlea nucleus, CN)
up to the auditory cortex.
10
The cat so prepared is admitted into a cage that
contains a food box whose lid can be opened by pressing a lever. However,
the lever-lid connection is operative only when a short single tone (here C
6
,
which is about 1000 hertz) is repetitively presented. The cat has to learn that
C
6
“means” food. Figures 3-6 show the pattern of nervous activity at eight
ascending auditory stations and at four consecutive stages of this learning
process.
10
The cat's behavior associated with the recorded neural activity is
for “random search” in Figure 3, “inspection of lever” in Figure 4, “lever
pressed at once” in Figure 5, and “walking straight toward lever (full com-
prehension)” in Figure 6. Note that no tone is perceived as long as this tone
is uninterpretable (Figs. 3,4; pure noise), but the whole system swings into
action with the appearance of the first “beep” (Figs. 5,6; noise becomes
signal), when sensation becomes comprehensible, when
our
perception of
“beep, beep; beep” is in the
cat's
perception “food, food, food.”
Interpretation
In these experiments I have cited instances in which we see or hear what
is not “there,” or in which we do not see or hear what is “there” unless coor-
dination of sensation and movement allows us to “grasp” what appears to
be there. Let me strengthen this observation by citing now the “principle
of undifferentiated encoding”:
Search WWH ::
Custom Search