By: tom

tom — Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:30:44 +0000

There’s a theoretical reason why the ‘grandmother cell’ argument still holds, of course. At the limit local representations (ie each thing represented by a specific cell, and each specific cell representing a single thing) means there is no generalisation: you need a cell for your grandmother as you saw here first today, and a cell for seeing your grandmother holding a warm cake, and a cell for seeing your grandmother smiling, etc etc. We’re only able to comprehend the idea of a grandmother because we can absorb many different (and quite diverse) physical sensations into the single concept, and (maybe!) represent that single concept in a single cell or set of cells.

Comments on: Evidence for ‘grandmother cells’

By: tom