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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The following article appeared in
<b><i>Frontiers of Cognitive Science</i></b> on May 24:
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Roy A. (2013). “An extension of the localist representation theory: grandmother cells are also widely used in the brain.”
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font face="Calibri"></font></span></b> </p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">It’s a very short article, just 2000 words. Here’s the link to the article:
</span><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p><a href="http://www.frontiersin.org/Cognitive_Science/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00300/full">http://www.frontiersin.org/Cognitive_Science/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00300/full</a></o:p></span></p>
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<p><font size="3">Single cell recordings of the past decade have produced a substantial body of evidence for grandmother cells.
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<p><font size="3"></font> </p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">Phys.org (MedicalXpress) reported the grandmother cell findings in a story titled:
<b>“<u>If you can't beat them, join them: Grandmother cells revisited</u>.” </b>Here’s the link to the story:
</font><a href="http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-grandmother-cells-revisited.html"><font face="Calibri">http://medicalxpress.com/news/2013-05-grandmother-cells-revisited.html</font></a></font></p>
<p><font face="Calibri"></font> </p>
<p><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><span lang="EN">Jerzy Konorski </span>(</font></font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Konorski" target="_blank"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Konorski</font></a><font size="3" face="Calibri">
)<b> </b><span lang="EN">and </span>Jerry Lettvin of MIT </font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Lettvin" target="_blank"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Lettvin</font></a><font size="3" face="Calibri">)
<span lang="EN">were the </span>original proponents of the grandmother cell idea. Horace Barlow (</font><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Barlow" target="_blank"><font color="#0000ff" size="3" face="Calibri">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Horace_Barlow</font></a><font size="3"><font face="Calibri">)
of Cambridge University, UK, remains to this day a firm believer in grandmother cells. His 2009 paper "<strong><em>Grandmother Cells, Symmetry, and Invariance: How the Term Arose and What the Facts Suggest</em></strong>" claims grandmother cells "<strong><u>exist</u></strong>"
and <span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Times New Roman','serif'; FONT-SIZE: 12pt">“<strong><u>can now be recorded from and studied reliably</u></strong>.”
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Calibri">There is some misconception about grandmother cells. The concept of grandmother cells is not just about a single cell encoding (representing) a person or an object. It's much more
than that. It's really about the brain's ability to abstract complex concepts (e.g. concepts of categories such as cats, dogs, animals, humans, trees, buildings, anger, laughter and so on) and encode (represent) each using a single cell. And that ability exists
in other animals too, not just humans. The evidence for the brain's ability to abstract complex concepts is presented in this paper.
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<p><font face="Calibri"></font> </p>
<p><font size="3"><font face="Calibri"><strong>With grandmother cells, mind reading becomes very simple. In fact, the brain is amazingly transparent at some level.</strong>
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<p><font size="3" face="Calibri"></font> </p>
<p><font size="3" face="Calibri">Grandmother cells are a special type of localist cells. In localist representation, units (cells) simply have "meaning and interpretation." Grandmother cells represent complex concepts that are multimodal invariant.</font></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">The localist representation theory article appeared in
<b><i>Frontiers of Cognitive Science</i></b> on Dec. 4, 2012:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Roy A. (2012). “A theory of the brain: localist representation is used widely in the brain.”
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"></span></b> </p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">It’s also a very short article, just 2000 words. Here’s the link to the article:
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><a href="http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/FullText.aspx?s=196&name=cognitive_science&ART_DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00551"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font color="#0000ff">http://www.frontiersin.org/Journal/FullText.aspx?s=196&name=cognitive_science&ART_DOI=10.3389/fpsyg.2012.00551</font></span></a></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">Phys.org (MedicalXpress) wrote a feature story on the localist theory titled:
<b>“<u>Do brain cells need to be connected to have meaning?</u>” </b>Here’s the link to the story:
</font><a href="http://phys.org/news273783154.html" target="_blank"><span style="BACKGROUND: white; COLOR: #1155cc"><font size="3" face="Times New Roman">http://phys.org/news273783154.html</font></span></a></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><b><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">James McClelland of Stanford University and David Plaut of Carnegie Mellon University presented arguments against the localist theory in that
Phys.org story. I posted a separate response to their arguments on the Lifeboat site. Here’s the link to the response:<o:p></o:p></span></p>
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<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoPlainText"><a href="http://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/12/response-to-plaut-and-mcclelland-on-the-phys-org-story"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font color="#0000ff">http://lifeboat.com/blog/2012/12/response-to-plaut-and-mcclelland-on-the-phys-org-story</font></span></a><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">With best regards,
<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Asim Roy<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Arizona State University<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt">Tempe, Arizona<o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><a href="http://www.lifeboat.com/ex/bios.asim.roy"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><font color="#0000ff">www.lifeboat.com/ex/bios.asim.roy</font></span></a><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p style="MARGIN: 0in 0in 0pt" class="MsoNormal"><span style="FONT-FAMILY: 'Calibri','sans-serif'; COLOR: #1f497d; FONT-SIZE: 11pt"><o:p> </o:p></span></p>
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