This is the last major work of Eugene N. Sokolov, Professor of Psychophysiology at Moscow State University from 1950 to 2008. It summarizes the contributions of a lifetime on the neural mechanism of consciousness. Working at the intersection of psychology, neurophysiology and mathematics, Sokolov early introduced the concept of quantifiable 'difference in neuronal activity' and 'cognitive distance' as corresponding metrics in the physical and mental models of reality. He demonstrated the power of multidimensional vector mathematics to represent the neural computations that mediate between the brain's neural model and the mind's mental model of reality.
Sokolov and colleagues showed a mathematical commonality among the neuronal mechanisms that mediate the perception of basic features of visual stimuli including color, brightness, line orientation and motion. This led to a general vector model linking perceptual and memory processes to adaptive motor mechanisms. They extended the model to encompass broader, more complex functions, such as the perception of emotions in facial expressions, semantic differences in verbal stimuli and differential executive control mechanisms. Integrating evidence from human psychophysics, animal neurophysiology and vector mathematics they developed a unified model to characterize quantitatively many complex relations between objective and subjective aspects of reality.
Sokolov's studies of neuronal mechanisms of mental phenomena led him to distinguish two categories of neurons: 'consciousness neurons' directly associated with awareness of perceptual, emotional and cognitive events, and neurons that are necessary for, but not directly involved in, conscious processes. The book integrates his findings with major themes shaping twenty-first century understanding of the brain-mind relationship. It relates the findings both to work of other Russian investigators, such as Pavlov, Luria, and Rusinov, and to work of many Western researchers, including von Bekesy, Eccles, Edelman, Ehrenstein, Grossberg, John, Koch and Crick, Ledoux, Llinas, Milner, Penfield, Penrose, Posner, and Schroedinger.
Rezensionen / Stimmen
"In this volume appearing after his death, Professor E. N. Sokolov, one of the greatest brain researchers of his generation, explores the relationship between the sequence of our subjective experience (consciousness) and brain activity. He proposes that consciousness neurons, some of which are found in the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, link our subjective experience to the world of sensations and memories through a hierarchy of localized modules. While his
proposals remain controversial, his discussion of them illuminates many of the most important methodological and substantive issues in modern Cognitive Neuroscience. As in his classic studies of the
orienting reflex, Sokolov's work employs the latest methods to explore fundamental issues of the nature of subjective experience."
Michael I. Posner, Professor Emeritus of Psychology, University Oregon, Adjunct Professor of Weill Medical College
"Eugene Sokolov was a great pioneer in the field of behavioral neuroscience, starting with his classical work on the orienting reflex, and one of the field's seminal contributors for over a half-century. His work was truly interdisciplinary, combining multiple methods from experimental psychology and neuroscience with brain modeling. This excellent translation of his last book exemplifies his research methodology through his analysis of the psychophysiology of
consciousness. Sokolov provides an interdisciplinary analysis of topics as far-ranging as visual perception, learning, attention, speech, bird song, emotion, working memory, cognition, numerical
estimation, meditation, creativity, action, sleeping, dreaming, hallucinations, resonance, and synchronous oscillations. Critically, he attempts to link conscious behavioral experiences with their underlying neural mechanisms."
Stephen Grossberg, Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems, and Director, Center for Adaptive Systems, Boston University
"The Psychophysiology of Consciousness is a great work integrating human perception/cognition and the neural correlates of consciousness. This book may interest
researchers and students in the field of cognitive psychology and neuroscience, and it may
be especially important for researchers studying consciousness." -Dawei Li,PsycCRITIQUES
Sprache
Verlagsort
Zielgruppe
Für höhere Schule und Studium
Psychophysiologists, physiological psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, neuropsychologists and psychophysicists interested in consciousness, neuronal network modeling, visual perception mechanisms, memory, and top-down cognitive processing
Maße
Höhe: 236 mm
Breite: 162 mm
Dicke: 19 mm
Gewicht
ISBN-13
978-0-19-993435-5 (9780199934355)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Klassifikation
Evgenii Sokolov is one of the most famous and decorated psychologists of the twentieth century. A professor at Moscow State University, he established the school's Department of Psychophysiology, which he chaired for more than thirty years. He pursued an exceedingly productive career of interdisciplinary research and teaching that ended only with his death at the age of 87, May 14, 2008. In 1984 he was elected to the Finnish Academy of Sciences and Letters and received the Pavlov Gold Medal Award from the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. In 1988 he became the first Russian scientist to receive the Award for Distinguished Contributions from the Society of Psychophysiological Research. And in 1998 he was recognized by the International Organization of Psychophysiology as one of five most acclaimed neuroscientists of the twentieth century.
Autor*in
Professor, Department of PsychophysiologyProfessor, Department of Psychophysiology, Moscow State University, Moscow, Russia
Herausgegeben und übersetzt von
Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral SciencesProfessor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle, USA
Table of Contents ; E.N. Sokolov (1920-2008) ; Preface ; Introduction ; Part 1. The spherical model of cognitive processing ; Chapter 1. Vector encoding in perception ; 1.1. The detector neuron ; 1.2. The neuronal structure of color space ; 1.3. Detectors of orientation and spatial frequency ; 1.4. Detectors of orientation and direction of lines in motion ; 1.5. Computation of perceptual differences: the perceptual evoked potential ; Chapter 2. From detector map to maps of memory and semantic units ; 2.1. The vector code in mismatch negativity ; 2.2. Recognition memory: vector transformation in neural networks ; 2.3. Association of memory traces based on time and similarity ; 2.4. Correlation between percepts and semantics ; 2.5. Computation of semantic differences in neural networks ; Chapter 3. Vector encoding in response conditioning ; 3.1. Synaptic mechanisms of the conditional response ; 3.2. Corticofugal and centripetal modulation of detector maps ; 3.3. Fluctuation of the pacemaker potential ; 3.4. The pacemaker potential in receptors, detectors and command neurons ; Part 2. The Neural Screen of Consciousness ; Chapter 4. The modular organization of the brain ; 4.1. The modular organization of cortical neurons. ; 4.2. Are all neurons associated with consciousness? ; 4.3. Consciousness and sleep ; Chapter 5. The mosaic nature of consciousness ; 5.1. The concept of distributed consciousness ; 5.2. Perception ; 5.3. Memory and semantics ; 5.4. Emotions ; 5.5. Subjective mosaics ; Chapter 6. Varieties of consciousness ; 6.1. Global and focal changes of consciousness ; 6.2. Special states of neurons in global and focal loss of consciousness ; 6.3. Filling-in and assimilation ; 6.4. Contrast ; 6.5. Masking ; 6.6. Supersensitivity ; Chapter 7. The neurophysiology of consciousness ; 7.1. Introspective and neuroconceptual models of consciousness ; 7.2. Re-entry ; 7.3. Consciousness and rhythmic brain activity ; 7.4. The gamma-rhythm and consciousness ; 7.5. Semantic evoked potentials ; 7.6. Consciousness neurons ; 7.7. Neurocomputation on dendrites ; 7.8. The intracellular mechanism of consciousness ; Conclusion: the spherical model of consciousness ; Bibliography
