xx

Neurodynamics of Cognition and Consciousness, Understanding Complex Systems by Robert Kozma PDF

Higher cognition and consciousness became the objective of intensive scientific studies and often spirited debates in the past decades. The brain has immensely complex structure and functionality, while our understanding of its operation is yet in its infancy. Some investigators declare that higher-level cognition and consciousness are ultimately beyond the realms of human scientific understanding and reasoning, and research into these areas is a futile exercise. Yet, the knowledge instinct deeply rooted in human activity drives researchers toward exploring the mysteries of human thought. These efforts lead to the development of increasingly sophisticated scientificmethods of understanding the operation of brains and the very nature of consciousness.The studies rely on the immense amount of experimental data becoming available as the result of advanced brain monitoring techniques. The experimental techniques require, in turn, the development of novel methods of theoretical analysis and interpretation tools. Our work is part of these endeavors.

This volume presents an in-depth overview of theoretical and experimentalapproaches to cognitive dynamics and applications in designing intelligent devices. The research efforts leading to this book have started about 2 years ago when we embarked on organizing a series of special and invited sessions which took place in July 2006 at the World Congress of Computational Intelligence WCCI2006, in beautiful Vancouver, Canada. The talks covered various aspects of neurodynamics of higher-level cognitive behavior, consciousness, and modeling emotions. The main theme of this volume is the dynamics of higher cognitive functions.

xx