Keynote Address/Opening Ceremony
Unity in a Modular World
Thursday, May 23, 2013,
6:00 PM - 8:00 PM
Fifty years of split-brain studies have led me to a long-term view on how to best understand mind/brain interactions. Overall, the view is consistent with the idea that complex neural systems, like all complex information processing systems, are highly modular. At the same time, how the modules come to interact and produce unitary goals is the great unknown. In this process, the importance of self-cueing cannot be overestimated. It is demonstrably evident in the human neurologic patient and especially in patients with hemispheric disconnection. When viewed in the context of modularity, it may provide insights into how a highly parallel and distributed brain coordinates its activities to produce a unitary output. Gaining a full understanding of cueing mechanisms will require shifting gears away from standard linear models and adopting a more controlled and dynamical system view of brain function.
Read more about Michael S. Gazzaniga in The Faces and Minds of Psychological Science
Michael S. Gazzaniga in the news: The Wall Street Journal (Feb 8, 2013).