Brain processes make sensations {sense, physiology}. Intensity is about amplitude, flux, and energy. Spatial location and extension are about size, shape, motion, number, and solidity. Time interval is about sequences, frequency, and before and after. Quality is about timbre.
physiology
Senses measure intensive quantities (pressure, temperature, concentration, sound, and light) using receptors that accumulate energy, an extensive quantity, on small surfaces over time intervals. Absorbed energy displaces mass and electric charge and becomes potential energy. Sense-cell altered-molecule potential energies can transfer energy to other molecules. Light-energy absorption changes retinal-receptor-molecule atom arrangements. Sound-energy absorption moves inner-ear hair-cell hairs and basilar membrane. Mechanical energy absorption stretches skin touch receptors. Heat energy absorption or loss moves cell receptor membrane in skin hot-or-cold receptor cells. Mechanical-energy absorption by smell and taste receptors bonds molecules to receptors and alters molecule atom arrangements.
Senses analyze signal-wave amplitude, phase, and frequency differences and ratios to make spatial, temporal, intensity, and frequency patterns. Information flows represent intensive quantities.
To detect, neurons can sum inputs to add and pass thresholds. To sum, neurons can take continued sums and so perform integration. To model physical interactions, neurons can adding logarithms to multiply. To find solutions, factors, probabilities, combinations, and permutations, neurons can sum logarithms to find continued products. To perform algebra and calculus operations, neuron assemblies calculate sums, differences, products, divisions, mu operations, differentials, integrals, exponentials, and logarithms. To perform geometric operations, neuron assemblies calculate rays, splines, lines, lengths, distances, angles, boundaries, areas, regions, region splits, region joins, volumes, triangulations, and trilateralizations. To use spaces, neuron assemblies detect coordinates, directions, coordinate origins, spatial positions, vectors, matrices, tensors, symmetries, and groups. To use objects, neuron assemblies detect self, not-self, patterns, features, objects, and object relations.
signals
Electrical signals can vary in amplitude, speed, frequency carried, rate, noise, sensitivity, threshold, attack and decay slope, phase, integration, dissemination, feedback, feedforward, control, querying, alternation, regulation, filtering, and tuning. Chemical signals can vary in type, concentration, diffusion, active transport, release, packet size, reactivity, and energy release.
signals: continuous/discrete
Brain has discrete neurons, neurotransmitter packets, nerve impulses, and molecules. Discrete processes can transfer and store information without degradation, perform logic operations, and represent categories.
Sense stimuli are discrete. Light is a photon stream. Sound is a phonon stream. Smells and tastes have individual molecule binding. Temperature and pressure are individual molecule movements. Receptors convert stimulus energy into ion and molecule motions. However, particles are small and many, and act on millisecond time scales. Over macroscopic space and time, stimuli appear continuous in intensity, spatial location and extension, time location and duration, and quality.
signals: vibrations
Touch receptors can detect mechanical vibrations up to 20 to 30 hertz, which are also the lowest frequency vibrations detected by hearing receptors. Below 20 Hz, people feel pressure changes as vibration, rather than hearing them as sound. Images flashed at 20-Hz rate begin to blend. 20-Hz is also maximum breathing, muscle-flexing, and harmonic-body-movement rate. Muscle contractions up to 20 times per second make "butterflies" in tummy, trembling with anger or fear, damping of depression, or excitations of joy. Animals can have spring-like devices that allow higher muscle-vibration rates.
effects
Sensations tend to cause reflex motor actions, which brain typically suppresses. Sensations excite and inhibit brain processes.
Sensations from voluntary muscles provide feedback after actions, for reward and punishment [Aristotle, -350].
measurement
Brain can measure relative and absolute distances, times, masses, and intensities. Measurements have accuracy, precision, reproducibility, selectivity, and sensitivity.
measurement: units
Mass, length, and time are fundamental measurements. During development, brain measures intensity ratios to build measurement units. Brains calculate distances using triangulation, linear perspective, and geometry [Staudt, 1847] [Veblen and Young, 1918]. Brain can detect distance difference of one degree arc. Brains can measure mass by linear or angular acceleration or by moment around axis, using combined sight and touch. Brain can detect mass difference of 100 grams. Perhaps, some neurons signal at millisecond and longer intervals to provide brain clocks for time measurement. Brain can detect time difference of 0.03 milliseconds.
measurement: accumulator
To measure extensive quantities, chemical or electrical accumulators can sum an intensive quantity sampled over time or space.
measurement: contrast
Neurons perceive relative intensity differences and intensity ratios. For example, eye receptors respond mainly to illumination changes, not to steady light. Receptors detect change over time. Receptor pairs detect differences over space.
processes
Perception factors stimuli into irreducible features, objects, and events.
processes: paths
Complex systems have enough parts, connections, and subsystems to have and regulate internal flows. Brain has a central flow and many other pathways and circuits. Central processing stream uses synchronized sequential signals, with feedback, feedforward, and other regulatory signals. Reticular activating system and brainstem start depolarization streams and so are basic to consciousness. Cerebrum constructs streams of consciousness.
processes: test signals
Like radar or sonar, brain scanning sends parallel signals through brain regions to obtain return-signal patterns.
processes: space
Neurons detect constants, variables, first derivatives, and second derivatives to determine distances and times and so create space and time, using extrapolation, interpolation, differentiation, integration, and optimization.
processes: motion minimization
Brain spatial and time coordinates minimize and simplify object motions, and number of objects to track, using fixed reference frames. Fixed reference frames make most object motions two-dimensional straight-line motions, which aid throwing and catching. In moving reference frames, more objects appear to move, and motions are three-dimensional curves.
processes: nulling
In size-weight illusions, mass discrimination seems to use nulling. Nulling can explain Weber-Fechner stimulus-sensation law.
processes: operations
Local sensory operations involve finding boundary, determining boundary orientation, increasing contrast, decreasing similarities, and detecting motion [Clarke, 1995]. Global sensory operations involve head and body movements, object trajectories, feature comparisons, and event sequences.
processes: resonation
To resonate, neuron pairs excite interneuron, which excites both neurons equally, while each paired neuron inhibits other paired neuron. If paired neurons fire asynchronously, interneuron signal has low amplitude and no frequency. If paired neurons fire synchronously, interneuron signal has high amplitude at input-signal frequency. Changing number of neurons and synapses traversed, or changing axon lengths, changes frequency.
Resonance detects synchronicity and so association. Interneurons can send resonating signals forward to other neurons.
processes: sampling
Body moves sense organs to sample different space regions over time. Directed movements gain information about critical features in critical locations at critical times. Birds and other animals move and then pause, every few seconds, to gather information [Matthews, 1973].
Perhaps, sampling uses attention mechanisms to decide to which location to move. Perhaps, sampling uses production systems to decide what to sample next. Perhaps, sampling uses template matching to recognize or categorize samples.
processes: statistics
Sense processing uses many neurons and so uses statistics.
processes: synchronization
Resting neurons send signals that adjust synapse properties and axon lengths, to coordinate timing among neuron sets. Synchronized signals lengthen or shorten pathways and quicken or slow synapses, to align time and space metrics.
processes: tensor
Sense-organ-receptor-, neuron-, and motor-neuron-array inputs are scalar or vector fields. Array uses a tensor function to transform field to output new vector field. Output vector field goes to cortical analysis or muscle and gland cells. Muscle cells contract in one direction with varying strength. Muscle-contraction vector fields have net contraction.
processes: timing
Brain neurons can send time signals at regular millisecond and/or longer intervals to act as clocks. Brain-timing-mechanism oscillation phases or periods can time perceptual events and body movements. At different times and positions, brain clocks run at different speeds for different purposes [Bair and Koch, 1996] [Bair, 1999] [Marsálek et al., 1997] [Nowak and Bullier, 1997] [Schmolesky et al., 1998].
Accumulation processes, such as adding energy units, can record time passage. Decay processes, subtracting energy units from total, can record time passage. Cycles can measure intervals between peaks. Tracking times requires processes that persist over time and whose later states causally depend on earlier states.
processes: wave modulation
Nerve signals can use wave-frequency modulation and wave-amplitude modulation to represent frequency and intensity.
processes: whole body
Brain, peripheral nervous system, and motor system interconnect, and sense qualities involve brain and body. For example, stroking skin can make people feel sense qualities in other body locations. Music and visual patterns can evoke whole body changes. Moods integrate senses, motor system, and body into overall feelings. Surprised people draw in breath and pull back, because drawing in breath helps one pull back, and body pulls away from what is in front.
speed
Brain processes sounds faster than sights. Brain processes colors faster than shapes. Action pathway is faster than object-recognition pathway. Brain calculates eye movements faster than voluntary movements [Revonsuo, 1999].
speed: information processing rate
Neuron information-processing rate is 40 bits per second. Ear information capacity is 10,000 bits per second. Eye can see 50 images per second, so eye information capacity is 500,000 to 600,000 bits per second.
Consciousness>Consciousness>Sense>Physiology
1-Consciousness-Sense-Physiology
Outline of Knowledge Database Home Page
Description of Outline of Knowledge Database
Date Modified: 2022.0224