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skepticism
in cognitive neuroscience
(Bechtel + Gallant’s lab
vs.
Uttal + Hardcastle)
Optimism
I. Bechtel (‘11)
• “Heuristic identity theory” (fMRI) over 30 areas
in for visual processing (occipital lobe, parietal
and temporal cortex) (‘08)
• fMRI – notions “localization” “brain areas” re-
conceptualized
• Bechtel’s alternative: mechanism + dynamical
system = dynamical mechanisms
• In 2008 – B: reductionism + emergence
• Autonomy of system (from Bernard’s notion of
“internal environment”, Cannon’s “homeostasis”,
Varela’s “autopoiesis”)
• “In fact, living systems has typically highly
integrated despite the differentiation of
operations between different organs and cell
types. The mind/brain seems to be no
different on this score – it consists of
component processing areas that perform
different computations which has
nonetheless highly integrated with each
other. Such a mechanism does not typically
include encapsulated modules, and one is not
likely to find them in the mind/brain.”
(Bechtel 2009)
• Mental mechanisms with specific functions
could be localized, but he emphasizes the
integration
• Sporns and Zwi’s (2004) “dual role of cortical
connectivity”:
(1) The functional specificity of certain cortical
areas that manipulates specific information
(2) The integration of this kind of information in a
coherent behavior and cognitive states
(“integration into coherent global states
through oscillations in thalamic neurons play in
producing global states”)
II. Gallant’s lab
(1)Gallant 2008 + 2009
• 120 pictures in V1, V2, V3
• Training set: fMRI signals to a larger (1,750) library of
natural images and measured the fMRI responses
produced by each of a number of voxels
• A representation of each picture - formed - spatial
frequency and orientation information summarized as a
“predicted activity pattern” for each of voxels
associated with picture = Quantitative representation of
fMRI responses to each image. (Uttal, p. 112) Based on
similarities, the voxel pattern of each image (from those
120) was compared with information from library, the
best fitting image being selected.
(2) “Reverse retinopy” Thiron et al (2006) and
Miyawaki et al. (2008) (in Uttal, p. 114)
• Shape of simple geometrical forms is preserved
enough in early retinotopic regions of visual
system
= Preservation of topology of original stimulus
pattern and spatial resolvability of spatial
pattern
• Examine spatial pattern of activated voxels, and
infer shape of stimulus. (…) Spatial information is
retinotopically persevered in early portion of the
visual system. (Uttal, p. 113)
(3) Gallant et al. second work – not “reverse retinopy”
method but “complex natural scenes from
nonisomorphic fMRI images”
• Uttal: “a process of recognition, selection, or
identification of an image from a known library of
alternatives rather than a reconstruction in either
the psychological or the neuroscientific sense.”
(Uttal 2011, p. 114)
• Uttal: Reconstructed images - “not pictures -
directly reconstructed from fMRI data but pictures
produced by combining parts of pictures that were
selected from the library of images, that is, the
Bayesian priors on which the system was originally
trained.” (p. 114)
• They selected pictures from their library based on
the pattern of activations
• This is not reconstruction per se; it is once again
selecting from a predetermined “deck of cards”.
Gallant 2011
• fMRI, computer progamm = Quantitative modeling
of brain activity measurements
• Reconstructed natural movies
• In the past, main problem: blood oxygen level-
dependent (BOLD) signals measured by fMRI are
much slower than neuronal activity in relationship
with dynamic stimuli
• “Motion-energy encoding” model has to fit two
components: visual motion information and slow
hemodynamics mechanisms
• V1, V2, V3 (occipitaltemporal visual cortex areas)
= How spatial and temporal information are
represented in thousands of voxels of visual cortex
• Watched several hours of movies – brain scanned
fMRI --- measurements in computer
• Comparing fMRI data and details of each movie,
computer program constructs “dictionaries” for
shape, edge and motion. Each voxel has such a
dictionary.
• Second set of movies- new fMRI data ---
reconstruction