Foundations and New Paradigms of Brain Computing: Attention, Search, Recognition, Oscillations, Working Memory, Speech Perception, Social Cognition Stephen Grossberg Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems Professor of Mathematics, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering Director, Center for Adaptive Systems Boston University http://cns.bu.edu/~steve/ July 14-15, 2012

Abstract

This talk reviews a method for theoretically linking mind and brain that has, since the 1950s, discovered many mind-brain principles, mechanisms, and architectures used today. The talk then surveys recent neural concepts, models, and systems derived by this method, including: how spatial and object attention are coordinated across the What and Where cortical streams to achieve invariant object category learning and recognition during eye movement search; how processes of consciousness, learning, expectation, attention, resonance, and synchrony combine during category learning; how learning, recognition, attention, emotion, and motor processes combine to search for a desired object amid distractors, and enable learning of joint attention during spatial cognition; how top-down attentive matches support fast gamma oscillations, whereas mismatch and reset cause slower beta oscillations, in laminar thalamocortical circuits; how acetylcholine can regulate the specificity of category learning; how linguistic, spatial and motor prefrontal working memories are designed to temporarily store sequences of events that can be unitized and stably remembered as list chunks; how a hierarchy of laminar cortical regions, gated by the basal ganglia, support the learning and recognition of speech percepts in which future context can influence conscious percepts of past events, as occurs during phonemic restoration.

Supported in part by the DARPA SyNAPSE program (HR0011-09-C-0001).

Short bio

Stephen Grossberg http://cns.bu.edu/~steve is Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and Professor of Mathematics, Psychology, and Biomedical Engineering at Boston University. Grossberg is a major pioneer and current leader of theoretical research on how brains give rise to minds, and how technology can emulate biological intelligence. In the 1960s, Grossberg introduced the paradigm and the core nonlinear systems of differential equations for short-term memory, medium-term memory, and long-term memory that form the foundation of computational neuroscience, connectionist cognitive science, and many approaches to neuromorphic technology. Grossberg has discovered design principles and neural architectures that clarify how the behavior of individuals, or machines, an adapt autonomously in real-time to unexpected environmental challenges. He introduced and made critical contributions to adaptive resonance theory (ART), competitive learning and self-organizing maps, and content-addressable memories and their Liapunov functions. His subsequent work includes models of vision and image processing; object and event recognition; audition, speech and language; brain development; cognitive information processing; reinforcement learning and cognitive-emotional interactions; navigation; sensory-motor control and robotics; mental disorders; and neuromorphic technology. Grossberg founded and was first President of the International Neural Network Society (INNS), founded and was Editor-in-Chief of Neural Networks, and served as editor for 30 journals. He was general chairman of the IEEE First International Conference on Neural Networks and played a key role organizing the first annual meeting of INNS, whose fusion led to the International Joint Conference on Neural Networks (IJCNN). His lecture series at MIT Lincoln Laboratory on neuromorphic technology triggered the national DARPA Study on Neural Networks. He is founding chairman of the Department of Cognitive and Neural Systems, founder and director of the Center for Adaptive Systems, and founding director of the NSF Center of Excellence for Learning in Education, Science. He won the 1991 IEEE Neural Network Pioneer Award, the 1992 INNS Leadership Award, the 1992 Boston Computer Society Thinking Technology Award, the 2000 Information Science Award of the Association for Intelligent Machinery, the 2002 Charles River Laboratories prize of the Society for Behavioral Toxicology, and the 2003 INNS Helmholtz Award. He is a 1994 Fellow of the American Psychological Association, a 1996 Fellow of the Society of Experimental Psychologists, a 2002 Fellow of the American Psychological Society, a 2005 IEEE Fellow, and a 2011 INNS Fellow. Grossberg has published 17 books or journal special issues, over 500 research articles, and has 7 patents.