Attention and Performance XVI: Information Integration in Perception and Communication(Attention and Performance XVI)

The contributors to this volume, the 16th in the Attention and Performance series, revisit the issue of modularity, the idea that many functions are independently realized in specialized, autonomous modules. Although there is much evidence of modularity in the brain, there is also reason to believe that the outcome of processing, across domains, depends on the synthesis of a wide range of constraining influences. The 24 chapters in "Attention and Performance XVI" look at how these influences are integrated in perception, attention, language comprehension and motor control. They consider the mechanisms of information integration in the brain; examine the status of the modularity hypothesis in the light of efforts to understand how information integration can be successfully achieved; and discuss information integration from the viewpoints of psychophysics, physiology and computational theory.

Table of Contents:
Part 1 Introduction: mechanisms of information integration in the brain, Toshio Inui. Part 2 Association lecture: object tokens, attention, and visual memory, Anne Treisman and Brett DeSchepper. Part 3 Integration in perception of visual structure: a Bayesian framework for the integration of visual modules, Heinrich H. Bulthoff and Alan L. Yuille; stereo and texture cue integration in the perception of planar and curved large real surfaces, John P. Frisby, David Buckley, and Jonathan Freeman; an architecture for rapid, hierarchical structural description, John E. Hummel and Brian J. Stankiewicz. Part 4 Integration over fixations in vision: integration and accumulation of information across saccadic eye movements, David E. Irwin and Rachel V. Andrews; a neuro-physiological distinction between attention and intention, Carol L. Colby. Part 5 Multimodal integration for representation of space: multiple pathways for processing visual space, Michael S.A. Graziano and Charles G. Gross; multimodal spatial constraints on tactile selective attention, Jon Driver and Peter G. Grossenbacher; multimodal spatial attention visualised by motion illusion, Okihide Hikosaka, Satoru Miyauchi, Hiroshige Takeichi, and Shinsuke Shimojo; haptic and visual representations of space, Lawrence E. Marks and Laura Armstrong. Part 6 Integration for motor control: are proprioceptive sensory inputs combined into a "gestalt?", Jean P. Roll, Jean C. Gilhodes, Regine Roll, and Francoise Harlay; integration of extrinsic and motor space, David A. Rosenbaum, Loukia D. Loukopoulos, Sascha E. Englebrecht, Ruud G.J. Meulenbroek, and Jonathan Vaughan; bidirectional theory approach to integration, Mitsuo Kawato; one visual experience, many visual systems, Melvyn A. Goodale. Part 7 Integration in language: integration of multiple sources of information in language processing, Dominic W. Massaro; representation and activation in syntactic processing, Maryellen C. MadDonald; using eye movements to study spoken language comprehension - evidence for visually mediated incremental interpretation, Michael K. Tanenhaus, Michael J. Spivey-Knowlton, Kathleen M. Eberhard, and Julie C. Sedivy; accounting for parsing principles - from parsing preferences to language acquisition, Gerry T.M. Altmann. (Part contents).

About the Author :
James L. McClelland is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Computation at Stanford University. He is the coauthor of Parallel Distributed Processing (1986) and Semantic Cognition (2004), both published by the MIT Press. With David E. Rumelhart, he was awarded the 2002 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology for his work in the field of cognitive neuroscience on a cognitive framework called parallel distributed processing and the concept of connectionism.