Re: What did that thread indicate?

On 26 Sep 2005 19:42:44 GMT, curt@xxxxxxxx (Curt Welch) wrote:

>SO, just by adding feedback loops to a network like mine, I know it's got
>the basic system needed to the "cocktail party" attention focus task. But
>I don't know if it can actually do it.

I doubt very much that it can. The cocktail party problem require a
system with the ability to anticipate intervals between events. It is
not that much more different than a dog chasing a rabbit. If the
rabbit suddenly disappears behind a hedge, the dog will not stop. It
will correctly predict that the rabbit will reappear on the other side
of the hedge after a short interval. The anticipatory mechanism of the
dog can instantly predict this interval.

Anticipation and attention use the same mechanism, IMO. There is a
sort of canalization of sensory/motor channels that takes place
whereby the vast majority of signals are ignored. Only a relatively
few incoming signals are processed. These are related to the concept
under focus.

In a noisy room, we use this anticipatory mechanism to focus on a
particular voice while excluding other sounds. We can fill in the
gaps, not only forward but also backwards. This is the reason that
memory is organized into sequences of seven nodes each (hence the
capacity of short-term memory). The brain can scan the nodes and
predict when they will fire given previous intervals.

If your system does not handle interval recording and prediction, it
has no hope of being intelligent. So-called memory traces are
intervals.

Louis Savain

Why Software Is Bad and What We Can Do to Fix It:
http://www.rebelscience.org/Cosas/Reliability.htm
.