Cortical basis of communication: local computation, coordination, attention.

Abstract

Human communication emerges from cortical processing, known to be implemented on a regular repetitive neuronal substratum. The supposed genericity of cortical processing has elicited a series of modeling works in computational neuroscience that underline the information flows driven by the cortical circuitry. In the minimalist framework underlying the current theories for the embodiment of cognition, such a generic cortical processing is exploited for the coordination of poles of representation, as is reported in this paper for the case of visual attention. Interestingly, this case emphasizes how abstract internal referents are built to conform to memory requirements. This paper proposes that these referents are the basis for communication in humans, which is firstly a coordination and an attentional procedure with regard to their congeners.