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David LaBerge (born 1929) is a neuropsychologist specializing in the attention process and the role of apical dendrites in cognition and consciousness.
David LaBerge was born in St. Louis, Missouri and received his undergraduate degree from the College of Wooster, his MA degree from Claremont University and his PhD degree Stanford University.
Dr. LaBerge has taught at Indiana University, Bloomington, University of Minnesota, and University of California at Irvine from 1955 until 1997. He was also a member of the adjunct faculty in psychology and biology at Bard College at Simon's Rock from 1997 to 2007 and was a visiting scholar at the University of Washington, Seattle from 2009 - 2011.
Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota; University of Minnesota Students Association Distinguished Service Award. Fellow, Society of Experimental Psychologists. Fellow AAAS. Fellow American Psychological Association. Fellow, American Psychological Society. Member Society for Neuroscience.
1. Mathematical models of choice behavior:
A model for neutral elements (1959a, b) provided a way to represent noise elements in the Estes and Burke (1953) choice theory. A recruitment model for choice behavior (1962, 1994) assumes that processing a stimulus involves the recruiting (or accumulation) of elements by alternative response counters until a criterion number is reached and the corresponding response is evoked. Predictive comparisons of two mathematical models of choice: the Counting Model (Accumulator Model) and the Random Walk Model. LaBerge, Journal of Mathematical Psychology (1994).
2. Early experiments of attention in response time experiments:
Stimulus processing is biased by relative frequency of presentation (1964), by incentive value (1967), and by inserting an informative cue into a trial (1970).
3. Studies of automaticity:
Measurement of automatic processing (1973a). A theory of automaticity in reading (1974) with S.J. Samuels. A theory of automaticity in perception (1975).
4. Measuring the spread of attention in visual space (1983, 1989).
5. Shifting attention by sense modality (1973b) and across visual space (1997).
6. Studies of thalamic involvement in selective attention:
A brain scan study of the human pulvinar during sustained selective attention (1990) with Monte Buchsbaum. A neural network simulation study of thalamic circuit operations in selective attention (1992).
7. Development of a test for preparatory attention to location (2000) with Eric Sieroff, and tests of patients (2004, 2005).
8. Development of a cortex-wide circuit theory of attention:
The Triangular Circuit of Attention, (1995, 1997).
9. Development of an apical dendrite theory of cognition, attention, and consciousness.
10. The neural foundation of experience: the role of vibrating neurons. LaBerge, D, Dorrance Publishing Co., (2020)
A series of papers explored the hypothesis that the apical dendrite is not "just another dendrite" but has its own special functions (2001, 2002, 2005, 2006, 2007).
The hypothesis that the apical dendrite resonates was illustrated informally by LaBerge and his daughter, Anne La Berge in three performances of a work entitled Resonant Dendrites, (2006, 2007, 2009), which featured film, narrative voice samples and music.
A formal description of a theory of electric resonance in apical dendrites appeared in an article by Kasevich & LaBerge (2010), which shows how an apical dendrite can fine tune its own membrane oscillations to a specific peak frequency, and narrow the width of the resonance curve around this peak to less than 1 Hz. This refinement enables its associated cortical circuit to generate a specific resonant ("carrier") frequency by which the circuit can separate its signaling from that of other circuits.
A more recent article by LaBerge & Kasevich (2013) describes signaling by neurons as the neural correlate of objective information processing and resonating in clusters of apical dendrites as the neural correlate of subjective impressions (e.g., impressions of sounds, colors, and feelings). These two "articles provide theoretical support for the hypothesis that apical dendrite resonance supplements neural signaling as a major mode of neural function. Furthermore, the resonance-based subjective impressions may be regarded as the contents of consciousness.
His major extracurricular activity was to serve for 21 years as music director and Conductor of the Minnesota Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus from 1959 to 1980. He was the director of the 50-voice South Sound Classical Choir in the Tacoma, WA area until May 2019.
He resides in Tacoma, Washington with his wife Janice Lawry.
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes with input from linguistics, psychology, neuroscience, philosophy, computer science/artificial intelligence, and anthropology. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition. Cognitive scientists study intelligence and behavior, with a focus on how nervous systems represent, process, and transform information. Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include language, perception, memory, attention, reasoning, and emotion; to understand these faculties, cognitive scientists borrow from fields such as linguistics, psychology, artificial intelligence, philosophy, neuroscience, and anthropology. The typical analysis of cognitive science spans many levels of organization, from learning and decision to logic and planning; from neural circuitry to modular brain organization. One of the fundamental concepts of cognitive science is that "thinking can best be understood in terms of representational structures in the mind and computational procedures that operate on those structures."
Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental processes. It addresses the questions of how cognitive activities are affected or controlled by neural circuits in the brain. Cognitive neuroscience is a branch of both neuroscience and psychology, overlapping with disciplines such as behavioral neuroscience, cognitive psychology, physiological psychology and affective neuroscience. Cognitive neuroscience relies upon theories in cognitive science coupled with evidence from neurobiology, and computational modeling.
Attention is the concentration of awareness on some phenomenon to the exclusion of other stimuli. It is a process of selectively concentrating on a discrete aspect of information, whether considered subjective or objective. William James (1890) wrote that "Attention is the taking possession by the mind, in clear and vivid form, of one out of what seem several simultaneously possible objects or trains of thought. Focalization, concentration, of consciousness are of its essence." Attention has also been described as the allocation of limited cognitive processing resources. Attention is manifested by an attentional bottleneck, in terms of the amount of data the brain can process each second; for example, in human vision, only less than 1% of the visual input data can enter the bottleneck, leading to inattentional blindness.
In psychology, parallel processing is the ability of the brain to simultaneously process incoming stimuli of differing quality. Parallel processing is associated with the visual system in that the brain divides what it sees into four components: color, motion, shape, and depth. These are individually analyzed and then compared to stored memories, which helps the brain identify what you are viewing. The brain then combines all of these into the field of view that is then seen and comprehended. This is a continual and seamless operation. For example, if one is standing between two different groups of people who are simultaneously carrying on two different conversations, one may be able to pick up only some information of both conversations at the same time. Parallel processing has been linked, by some experimental psychologists, to the stroop effect. In the stroop effect, an inability to attend to all stimuli is seen through people's selective attention.
Computational neuroscience is a branch of neuroscience which employs mathematics, computer science, theoretical analysis and abstractions of the brain to understand the principles that govern the development, structure, physiology and cognitive abilities of the nervous system.
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to neuroscience:
Pyramidal cells, or pyramidal neurons, are a type of multipolar neuron found in areas of the brain including the cerebral cortex, the hippocampus, and the amygdala. Pyramidal cells are the primary excitation units of the mammalian prefrontal cortex and the corticospinal tract. Pyramidal neurons are also one of two cell types where the characteristic sign, Negri bodies, are found in post-mortem rabies infection. Pyramidal neurons were first discovered and studied by Santiago Ramón y Cajal. Since then, studies on pyramidal neurons have focused on topics ranging from neuroplasticity to cognition.
The consciousness and binding problem is the problem of how objects, background and abstract or emotional features are combined into a single experience.
Holonomic brain theory is a branch of neuroscience investigating the idea that human consciousness is formed by quantum effects in or between brain cells. Holonomic refers to representations in a Hilbert phase space defined by both spectral and space-time coordinates. Holonomic brain theory is opposed by traditional neuroscience, which investigates the brain's behavior by looking at patterns of neurons and the surrounding chemistry.
In neuroanatomy, thalamocortical radiations also known as thalamocortical fibres, are the efferent fibres that project from the thalamus to distinct areas of the cerebral cortex. They form fibre bundles that emerge from the lateral surface of the thalamus.
Stephen Grossberg is a cognitive scientist, theoretical and computational psychologist, neuroscientist, mathematician, biomedical engineer, and neuromorphic technologist. He is the Wang Professor of Cognitive and Neural Systems and a Professor Emeritus of Mathematics & Statistics, Psychological & Brain Sciences, and Biomedical Engineering at Boston University.
Neural binding is the neuroscientific aspect of what is commonly known as the binding problem: the interdisciplinary difficulty of creating a comprehensive and verifiable model for the unity of consciousness. "Binding" refers to the integration of highly diverse neural information in the forming of one's cohesive experience. The neural binding hypothesis states that neural signals are paired through synchronized oscillations of neuronal activity that combine and recombine to allow for a wide variety of responses to context-dependent stimuli. These dynamic neural networks are thought to account for the flexibility and nuanced response of the brain to various situations. The coupling of these networks is transient, on the order of milliseconds, and allows for rapid activity.
Stanislas Dehaene is a French author and cognitive neuroscientist whose research centers on a number of topics, including numerical cognition, the neural basis of reading and the neural correlates of consciousness. As of 2017, he is a professor at the Collège de France and, since 1989, the director of INSERM Unit 562, "Cognitive Neuroimaging".
Animal consciousness, or animal awareness, is the quality or state of self-awareness within an animal, or of being aware of an external object or something within itself. In humans, consciousness has been defined as: sentience, awareness, subjectivity, qualia, the ability to experience or to feel, wakefulness, having a sense of selfhood, and the executive control system of the mind. Despite the difficulty in definition, many philosophers believe there is a broadly shared underlying intuition about what consciousness is.
Recurrent thalamo-cortical resonance is an observed phenomenon of oscillatory neural activity between the thalamus and various cortical regions of the brain. It is proposed by Rodolfo Llinas and others as a theory for the integration of sensory information into the whole of perception in the brain. Thalamocortical oscillation is proposed to be a mechanism of synchronization between different cortical regions of the brain, a process known as temporal binding. This is possible through the existence of thalamocortical networks, groupings of thalamic and cortical cells that exhibit oscillatory properties.
Bertram Gawronski is a social psychologist and professor of psychology at the University of Texas at Austin. He is known for his research in the areas of attitudes, social cognition, decision making, and moral psychology.
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The Troland Research Awards are an annual prize given by the United States National Academy of Sciences to two researchers in recognition of psychological research on the relationship between consciousness and the physical world. The areas where these award funds are to be spent include but are not limited to areas of experimental psychology, the topics of sensation, perception, motivation, emotion, learning, memory, cognition, language, and action. The award preference is given to experimental work with a quantitative approach or experimental research seeking physiological explanations.
Models of consciousness are used to illustrate and aid in understanding and explaining distinctive aspects of consciousness. Sometimes the models are labeled theories of consciousness. Anil Seth defines such models as those that relate brain phenomena such as fast irregular electrical activity and widespread brain activation to properties of consciousness such as qualia. Seth allows for different types of models including mathematical, logical, verbal and conceptual models.
Laura Busse is a German neuroscientist and professor of Systemic Neuroscience within the Division of Neurobiology at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich. Busse's lab studies context-dependent visual processing in mouse models by performing large scale in vivo electrophysiological recordings in the thalamic and cortical circuits of awake and behaving mice.
Estes, W.K. & Burke, C. J. A theory of stimulus variability in learning. Psychological Review, 1953, 60, 276–286.
LaBerge, D. (1959a). Effect of preliminary trials on rate of conditioning in a simple prediction situation. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 57, 20–24.
LaBerge, D. (1959b). A model with neutral elements. In R.R. Bush & W.K. Estes (Eds.), Studies in Mathematical Learning Theory. Stanford: Stanford University Press, pp 53–93.
LaBerge, D. (1962). A recruitment theory of simple behavior. Psychometrika, 27, 375–396.
LaBerge, D. and Tweedy, J.R. (1964). Presentation probability and choice time. Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68, 477–481.
LaBerge, D. Tweedy, J.R., & Ricker, J. (1967). Selective attention: Incentive variables and choice time. Psychonomic Science, 8, 341–342.
LaBerge, D., Van Gelder, P., & Yellott, J. (1970) A cueing technique in choice reaction time. Perception and Psychophysics, 7, 57–62.
LaBerge, D. (1973a) Attention and the measurement of perceptual learning. Memory and Cognition, 1, 268–276.
LaBerge, D. and Samuels, S.J. (1974) Toward a theory of automatic information processing in reading. Cognitive Psychology, 6, 293–323.
LaBerge, D. (1975). Acquisition of automatic processing of perceptual learning. In P. M. A. Rabbitt & S. Dornic (Eds.), Attention & Performance V, New York: Academic Press, pp 50–64.
LaBerge, D. (1973b) Identification of the time to switch attention: A test of a serial and a parallel model of attention. In S. Kornblum (Ed.), Attention & Performance IV, New York: Academic Press, pp 71–85.
LaBerge, D. (1983). The spatial extent of attention to letters and words. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception & Performance, 9, 37 -379.
LaBerge, D. & Brown, V. (1989) Theory of attentional operations in shape identification. Psychological Review, 96,101-124.
LaBerge, D & Buchsbaum, M.S. (1990). Positron emission tomographic measurements of pulvinar activity during an attention task. Journal of Neuroscience, 10, 613–619.
LaBerge, D., Carter, M., and Brown, V. (1992). A network simulation of thalamic circuit operations in selective attention. Neural Computation, 4, 318–331.
LaBerge, D. (1994) Quantitative models of attention and response processes in shape identification tasks. Journal of Mathematical Psychology, 38, 198–243.
LaBerge, D. (1995). Attentional Processing: The Brain's Art of Mindfulness. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
LaBerge, D. (1997). Attention, awareness, and the triangular circuit. Consciousness and Cognition, 6,140-181.
LaBerge, D., Carlson, R.L., Williams, J.K., & Bunney, B. (1997). Shifting Attention in space: Tests of moving spotlight models vs an activity-distribution model. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance. 23, 1380–1392.
LaBerge, D., Auclair, L., and Sieroff, E. (2000). Preparatory attention: experiment and theory. Consciousness and Cognition, 9, 396–434.
Sieroff, E., Piquard, A., Auclair, L., Lacomblez, L., Derouesne, C., and LaBerge, D. (2004). Deficit of preparatory attention in frontal- temporal dementia. Brain & Cognition, 55, 444–451.
Auclair, L., Jambaque, I., Dulac, O., and LaBerge, D. (2005). Deficit of preparatory attention in children with frontal lobe epilepsy. Neuropsychologia, 43, 1701–1712.
LaBerge, D. (2001). Attention, consciousness, and electrical wave activity within the cortical column. International Journal of Psychophysiology, 43, 5-24.
LaBerge, D. (2002). Attentional control: brief and prolonged. Psychological Research, 66, 220–233.
LaBerge, D. (2005). Sustained attention and apical dendrite activity in recurrent circuits. Brain Research Reviews, 50, 86–99.
LaBerge, D. (2006). Apical dendrite activity in cognition and consciousness. Consciousness and Cognition, 15, 235–257.
LaBerge, A., (2006). Resonant Dendrites: A science and art lecture/performance for soloist, video, and Max/MSP. Close Encounters, the 4th European conference of the Society for Science, Literature, and the Arts. Amsterdam.
LaBerge, A., and LaBerge, D. (2007). Resonant Dendrites. Lecture/performance at the Spark Festival of Electronic Music and Arts. University of Minnesota School of Music.
LaBerge, D. and Kasevich, R.S. (2007). The apical dendrite theory of consciousness, Neural Networks, 20,1004-1020.
LaBerge, A. (2009). Resonant Dendrites: Music for flute and computer. Claire Trevor School of the Arts, University of California, Irvine.
Kasevich, R.S., and LaBerge, D. (2011). Theory of electric resonance in the neocortical apical dendrite. PLoS ONE, 6(8): e23412.
LaBerge, D. and Kasevich, R. (2013). The cognitive significance of the resonating neurons in the cerebral cortex. Consciousness and Cognition, 22, 1523–1550.
LaBerge, D. and Kasevich, R.S. (2017). Neuroelectric Tuning of Cortical Oscillations by Apical Dendrites in Loop Circuits. doi: 10.3389/fnsys.2017.00037.
LaBerge, D.( 2020). The neural foundation of experience: the role of vibrating neurons. Dorrance Publishing Co. (2020).
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