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FINST
Visual indexing theory, also known as FINST theory, is a theory of early visual perception developed by Zenon Pylyshyn in the 1980s. It proposes a pre-attentive mechanism (a ‘FINST’) whose function is to individuate salient elements of a visual scene, and track their locations across space and time. Developed in response to what Pylyshyn viewed as limitations of prominent theories of visual perception at the time, visual indexing theory is supported by several lines of empirical evidence. Overview Fingers of instantiation 'FINST' abbreviates ‘FINgers of INSTantiation’. Pylyshyn describes visual indexing theory in terms of this analogy.Pylyshyn, Z.W. (1989). The role of location indexes in spatial perception: a sketch of the FINST spatial index model. Cognition, 32, 65–97. Imagine, he proposes, placing your fingers on five separate objects in a scene. As those objects move about, your fingers stay in respective contact with each of them, allowing you to continually ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Zenon Pylyshyn
Zenon Walter Pylyshyn (; 25 August 1937 – 6 December 2022) was a Canadian cognitive scientist and philosopher. He was a Canada Council Senior Fellow from 1963 to 1964. Pylyshyn's research generally involved the theoretical analysis of the nature of the human cognitive systems behind perception, imagination, and reasoning. He developed visual indexing theory (sometimes called the FINST theory) which hypothesizes a pre-conceptual mechanism responsible for individuating, tracking, and directly (or demonstratively) referring to the visual objects that could be interrogated by cognitive processes. His very influential multiple object tracking experiment methodology emerged from this work. Early life and education Pylyshyn was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to Ukrainian immigrants Anna and Yuriy. He obtained a degree in Engineering Physics (BEng 1959) from McGill University and in control systems (MSc 1960) and experimental psychology (PhD 1963), both from the Regina Campus, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Visual Perception
Visual perception is the ability to detect light and use it to form an image of the surrounding Biophysical environment, environment. Photodetection without image formation is classified as ''light sensing''. In most vertebrates, visual perception can be enabled by photopic vision (daytime vision) or scotopic vision (night vision), with most vertebrates having both. Visual perception detects light (photons) in the visible spectrum reflected by objects in the environment or emitted by light sources. The light, visible range of light is defined by what is readily perceptible to humans, though the visual perception of non-humans often extends beyond the visual spectrum. The resulting perception is also known as vision, sight, or eyesight (adjectives ''visual'', ''optical'', and ''ocular'', respectively). The various physiological components involved in vision are referred to collectively as the visual system, and are the focus of much research in linguistics, psychology, cognitive s ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pre-attentive Processing
Pre-attentive processing is the subconscious accumulation of information from the environment.Atienza, M., Cantero, J. L., & Escera, C. (2001). Auditory information processing during human sleep as revealed by event-related brain potentials. Clinical Neurophysiology, 112(11), 2031-2045.Van der Heijden, A. H. C. (1996). Perception for selection, selection for action, and action for perception. Visual Cognition, 3(4), 357-361. All available information is pre-attentively processed. Then, the brain filters and processes what is important. Information that has the highest salience (a stimulus that stands out the most) or relevance to what a person is thinking about is selected for further and more complete analysis by conscious (attentive) processing. Understanding how pre-attentive processing works is useful in advertising, in education, and for prediction of cognitive ability. Pure-capture and contingent-capture The reasons are unclear as to why certain information proceeds from ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Attention
Attention or focus, is the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli. It is the selective concentration on discrete information, either subjectively or objectively. William James (1890) wrote that "Attention is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence." Attention has also been described as the allocation of limited cognitive processing resources. Attention is manifested by an attentional bottleneck, in terms of the amount of data the brain can process each second; for example, in human vision, less than 1% of the visual input data stream of 1MByte/sec can enter the bottleneck, leading to inattentional blindness. Attention remains a crucial area of investigation within education, psychology, neuroscience, cognitive neuroscience, and neuropsychology. Areas of activ ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mental Representation
A mental representation (or cognitive representation), in philosophy of mind, cognitive psychology, neuroscience, and cognitive science, is a hypothetical internal cognitive symbol that represents external reality or its abstractions. Mental representation is the mental imagery of things that are not actually present to the senses. In contemporary philosophy, specifically in fields of metaphysics such as philosophy of mind and ontology, a mental representation is one of the prevailing ways of explaining and describing the nature of ideas and concepts. Mental representations (or mental imagery) enable representing things that have never been experienced as well as things that do not exist. Our brains and mental imageries allow us to imagine things have either never happened or are impossible and do not exist. Although visual imagery is more likely to be recalled, mental imagery may involve representations in any of the sensory modalities, such as hearing, smell, or taste. S ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subitizing
Subitizing is the rapid, accurate, and effortless ability to perceive small quantities of items in a set, typically when there are four or fewer items, without relying on linguistic or arithmetic processes. The term refers to the sensation of instantly knowing how many objects are in the visual scene when their number falls within the subitizing range. Sets larger than about four to five items cannot be subitized unless the items appear in a pattern with which the person is familiar (such as the six dots on one face of a die). Large, familiar sets might be counted one-by-one (or the person might calculate the number through a rapid calculation if they can mentally group the elements into a few small sets). A person could also estimate the number of a large set—a skill similar to, but different from, subitizing. The term subitizing was coined in 1949 by E. L. Kaufman et al., and is derived from the Latin adjective '' subitus'' (meaning "sudden"). The accuracy, speed, and confi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
William Stanley Jevons
William Stanley Jevons (; 1 September 1835 – 13 August 1882) was an English economist and logician. Irving Fisher described Jevons's book ''A General Mathematical Theory of Political Economy'' (1862) as the start of the mathematical method in economics. It made the case that economics, as a science concerned with Real versus nominal value (economics), quantities, is necessarily mathematical. In so doing, it expounded upon the "final" (marginal) utility theory of value. Jevons' work, along with similar discoveries made by Carl Menger in Vienna (1871) and by Léon Walras in Switzerland (1874), marked the opening of a new period in the history of economic thought. Jevons's contribution to the Marginal utility#Marginal Revolution, marginal revolution in economics in the late 19th century established his reputation as a leading political economist and logician of the time. Jevons broke off his studies of the natural sciences in London in 1854 to work as an metallurgical assay, ass ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Single-neuron Recordings
In neuroscience, single-unit recordings (also, single-neuron recordings) provide a method of measuring the electro-physiological responses of a single neuron using a microelectrode system. When a neuron generates an action potential, the signal propagates down the neuron as a current which flows in and out of the cell through excitable membrane regions in the soma and axon. A microelectrode is inserted into the brain, where it can record the rate of change in voltage with respect to time. These microelectrodes must be fine-tipped, impedance matching; they are primarily glass micro-pipettes, metal microelectrodes made of platinum, tungsten, iridium or even iridium oxide. Microelectrodes can be carefully placed close to the cell membrane, allowing the ability to record extracellularly. Single-unit recordings are widely used in cognitive science, where it permits the analysis of human cognition and cortical mapping. This information can then be applied to brain–machine interface ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Medial Temporal Lobe
The temporal lobe is one of the four major lobes of the cerebral cortex in the brain of mammals. The temporal lobe is located beneath the lateral fissure on both cerebral hemispheres of the mammalian brain. The temporal lobe is involved in processing sensory input into derived meanings for the appropriate retention of visual memory, language comprehension, and emotion association. ''Temporal'' refers to the head's temples. Structure The temporal lobe consists of structures that are vital for declarative or long-term memory. Declarative (denotative) or explicit memory is conscious memory divided into semantic memory (facts) and episodic memory (events). The medial temporal lobe structures are critical for long-term memory, and include the hippocampal formation, perirhinal cortex, parahippocampal, and entorhinal neocortical regions. The hippocampus is critical for memory formation, and the surrounding medial temporal cortex is currently theorized to be critical f ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Neural Coding
Neural coding (or neural representation) is a neuroscience field concerned with characterising the hypothetical relationship between the Stimulus (physiology), stimulus and the neuronal responses, and the relationship among the Electrophysiology, electrical activities of the neurons in the Neuronal ensemble, ensemble. Based on the theory that sensory and other information is represented in the brain by Biological neural network, networks of neurons, it is believed that neurons can encode both Digital data, digital and analog signal, analog information. Overview Neurons have an ability uncommon among the cells of the body to propagate signals rapidly over large distances by generating characteristic electrical pulses called action potentials: voltage spikes that can travel down axons. Sensory neurons change their activities by firing sequences of action potentials in various temporal patterns, with the presence of external sensory stimuli, such as light, sound, taste, Olfaction, sm ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quanta Magazine
''Quanta Magazine'' is an editorially independent online publication of the Simons Foundation covering developments in physics, mathematics, biology and computer science. History ''Quanta Magazine'' was initially launched as ''Simons Science News'' in October 2012, but it was renamed to its current title in July 2013. It was founded by the former ''New York Times'' journalist Thomas Lin, who was the magazine's editor-in-chief until 2024. The two deputy editors are John Rennie and Michael Moyer, formerly of ''Scientific American'', and the art director is Samuel Velasco. In 2024, Samir Patel became the magazine's second editor in chief. Content The articles in the magazine are freely available to read online. ''Scientific American'', ''Wired'', ''The Atlantic'', and ''The Washington Post'', as well as international science publications like '' Spektrum der Wissenschaft'', have reprinted articles from the magazine. In November 2018, MIT Press The MIT Press is the uni ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
