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. 1995 Dec 19;92(26):12370–12373. doi: 10.1073/pnas.92.26.12370

Brain localization for arbitrary stimulus categories: a simple account based on Hebbian learning.

T A Polk 1, M J Farah 1
PMCID: PMC40359  PMID: 8618903

Abstract

A central theme of cognitive neuroscience is that different parts of the brain perform different functions. Recent evidence from neuropsychology suggests that even the processing of arbitrary stimulus categories that are defined solely by cultural conventions (e.g., letters versus digits) can become spatially segregated in the cerebral cortex. How could the processing of stimulus categories that are not innate and that have no inherent structural differences become segregated? We propose that the temporal clustering of stimuli from a given category interacts with Hebbian learning to lead to functional localization. Neural network simulations bear out this hypothesis.

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Selected References

These references are in PubMed. This may not be the complete list of references from this article.

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