Construction of concepts by the nervous system: from neurons to cognition

Neurophysiological studies have recently identified a pattern of synchronized slow-wave activity in the visual cortex which characteristically encompasses groups of neurons activated by similar or closely related stimulus attributes. This slow-wave activity appears to tag clusters of neurons to form aggregates representing in their totality more complex, higher-order stimulus attributes across disparate positions in the cortical representation. The notion is advanced that the function of these aggregates is analogous to that ascribed to the subsymbolic computational level in connectionist networks. On this basis, the argument is presented that the synchronized cortical activity is an important aspect of the construction of symbolic representation by the nervous system and, thus, a step from neural information processing to the symbolic processes stipulated by classical cognitivism.