Synchrony, Another Model
- Another model for Variable Binding is that it is done by synchronous firing (Von
der Marlsberg 1986 Am I Thinking Assemblies in Brain Theory)
- The idea is that CAs fire and they tend to have most of the neurons firing at
a particular frequency or pattern.
- So for instance, they might fire at
0 ms., 30 ms. 50 ms. 80 ms., 100 ms. and then repeat.
- Left to their own devices, CAs would fire at differnt patterns.
- However, if they were bound then they'd fire in the same pattern.
- So, Red and Square would fire in the same pattern, and Blue and Circle would fire
in the same pattern but different than Red and Square.
- Some advantages to this model are that there is neuro-physiological evidence
of synchronous firing
- We (and others) have found that oscillation is an emergent property
of firing neurons.
- The reason is that the Red CA influences the Square CA, because they are
caused by the same object. This causes them to synchronise.
- On the down side, for variable binding to function, synchronous firing must
be detected by some neurons or some system to detect binding
- There is no evidence of such neurons or such a system.
- Synchrony is a viable model, but we feel that instead of synchrony acting as
binding, it may just support learning.
- Since the neurons are firing together the strength between them will increase.
