Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2001 - Volume 24, Issue 05  


Short Communication

Chaos and neural coding: Is the binding problem a pseudo-problem?

Antonino Raffone a1 and Cees van Leeuwen a2a3
a1 Department of Psychology, University of Rome “La Sapienza,” I 00185 Rome, Italy antonino.raffone@uniromal.it
a2 Department of Psychology, University of Sunderland, SR6 0DD Sunderland, United Kingdom cees.van-leeuwen@sunderland.ac.uk
a3 RIKEN SBI 2-1 Hirosawa, Saitama 351-0198, Japan

Abstract

Tsuda's article suggests several plausible concepts of neurodynamic representation and processing, with a thoughtful discussion of their neurobiological grounding and formal properties. However, Tsuda's theory leads to a holistic view of brain functions and to the controversial conclusion that the “binding problem” is a pseudo-problem. By contrast, we stress the role of chaotic patterns in solving the binding problem, in terms of flexible temporal coding of visual scenes through graded and intermittent synchrony.