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In recent years, several symposia have been held on subjects relating to the general theme of information processing in the nervous system. It is now widely recognized that this whole field is rapidly developing and changing in a manner beyond our imaginings of a few years ago. When confronted with conceptual revolutions of this kind, it is justifiable to have a continued on-going discourse and disputation so that there is maximum opportunity for interaction between the leaders of thought in all the re lated disciplines. The conference organized by K. N. Leibovic, and held at the State University of New York at Buffalo from October 21st to 24th, 1968, made a notable contribution to this interaction. It is fortunate that there is here being published, not only the papers contributed to the sym posium, but also much of the stimulating discussion. The term "neuronal machinery" can be validly used because there is now good understanding of the operational mechanisms of at least some of the neuronal centers in the brain, and our knowledge of these mechanisms is progressing in a most encouraging manner. The stated objective by Prof. Leibovic, the organizer of the symposium, was that it was designed to cor relate neuronal machinery with psychophysiological phenomena. He calls attention to the urgency of achieving a common conceptual basis for neuro anatomy, neurophysiology, and psychology.
List of contents
1. Automata Theory as an Abstract Boundary Condition for the Study of Information Processing in the Nervous System.- 2. Hierarchical Organization in Automata Theoretic Models of the Central Nervous System.- 3. The Non-local Storage and Associative Retrieval of Spatio-Temporal Patterns.- 4. On the Complexity of Language Processing by the Brain.- 5. Context-Sensitive Coding in Speech Recognition, Articulation and Development.- 6. The Speech Code and the Physiology of Language.- 7. Repetition, Visual Persistence, Visual Noise, and Infor-mation Processing.- 8. Behavioral and Electrophysiological Studies of Visual Masking.- 9. Temporal Summation During Backward Visual Masking.- 10. Toward a Theory of Man: Precision of Essentic Form in Living Communication.- 11. Trigger Features, Adaptation and Economy of Impulses.- 12. Information Processing in the Motorsensory Cortex.- 13. The Dynamic Loop Hypothesis of Movement Control.- 14. On Synaptic Transmission, Neural Signals and Psycho-physiological Phenomena.- 15. Of Digital Oscillators.- 16. The Reticular Formation Command and Control System.- 17. "Autonomy" and "Dominance" in Neural Systems: Two Examples of Dynamic Properties Defined on Finite State Models.- 18. Biological Information Processing Using the Concept of Interpenetrating Domains.- VI: Final Session.- Author Index.
