The Complementary Brain: A Unifying View of Brain Specialization and Modularity

[Stephen Grossberg]

The following article is available at
http://www.cns.bu.edu/Profiles/Grossberg/  in HTML, PDF, and Gzipped
postscript:

Grossberg, S. (2000).  The complementary brain: A unifying view of brain
specialization and modularity.  Trends in Cognitive Sciences, in press.
Preliminary version appears as Boston University Technical
Report CAS/CNS-TR-98-003.

Abstract: How are our brains functionally organized to achieve adaptive
behavior in a changing world? This article presents one alternative to the
computer metaphor suggesting that brains are organized into
independent modules. Evidence is reviewed that brains are organized into
parallel processing streams with complementary properties. Hierarchical
interactions within each stream and parallel interactions between streams
create coherent behavioral representations that overcome the complementary
deficiencies of each stream and support unitary conscious experiences. This
perspective suggests how brain design reflects the organization of the
physical world with which brains interact. Examples from perception,
learning, cognition, and action are described, and theoretical concepts and
mechanisms by which complementarity is accomplished are presented.

Keywords: modulatory, What and Where processing, visual cortex, motor
cortex, reinforcement,  recognition, attention, learning, expectation,
volition, speech, neural network