Neurons and Cognition (q-bio.NC)

Abstract: Visual information is processed in hierarchically organized parallel pathways in the primate brain. In lower cortical areas, color information and shape information are processed in a parallel manner, while in higher cortical areas, various types of visual information, such as color, face, animate/inanimate, are processed in a parallel manner. In the present study, the possibility of spontaneous segregation of visual information in parallel streams was examined by constructing a convolutional neural network with parallel architecture in all of the convolutional layers. The results revealed that color information was segregated from shape information in most model instances. Deletion of the color-related stream decreased recognition accuracy in the inanimate category, whereas deletion of the shape-related stream decreased recognition accuracy in the animate category. The results suggest that properties of filters and functions of a stream are spontaneously segregated in parallel streams of neural networks.

Abstract: Parametric approaches to grammatical diversity range from Chomsky's 1981 classical Principles & Parameters model to minimalist reinterpretations: in some proposals of the latter framework, parameters need not be an extensional list given at the initial state S0 of the mind, but can be constructed through a bio-program in the course of language development. In this contribution we pursue this lead and discuss initial data and ideas relevant for the elaboration of three sets of questions: 1) how can binary parameters be conceivably implemented in cortical and subcortical circuitry in the human brain? 2) how can parameter mutations be taken to occur? 3) given the distribution of parameter values across languages and their implications, can multi-parental models of language phylogenies, departing from ultrametricity, also account for some of the available evidence?