2009年12月17日 星期四

Karl H. Pribram

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Karl H. Pribram (born February 25, 1919 in Vienna, Austria) is a professor at Georgetown University , and an emeritus professor of psychology and psychiatry at Stanford University and Radford University. Board-certified as a neurosurgeon, Pribram did pioneering work on the definition of the limbic system, the relationship of the frontal cortex to the limbic system, the sensory-specific "association" cortex of the parietal and temporal lobes, and the classical motor cortex of the human brain. To the general public, Pribram is best known for his development of the holonomic brain model of cognitive function and his contribution to ongoing neurological research into memory, emotion, motivation and consciousness. American best selling author Katherine Neville is his significant other.

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Holonomic model

Pribram's holonomic model of brain processing states that, in addition to the circuitry accomplished by the large fiber tracts in the brain, processing also occurs in webs of fine fiber branches (for instance, dendrites) that form webs. This type of processing is properly described by Gabor quanta of information, wavelets that are used in quantum holography, the basis of fMRI, PET scans and other image processing procedures.

Gabor wavelets are windowed Fourier transforms that convert complex spatial (and temporal) patterns into component waves whose amplitudes at their intersections become reinforced or diminished. Fourier processes are the basis of holography. Holograms can correlate and store a huge amount of information - and have the advantage that the inverse transform returns the results of correlation into the spatial and temporal patterns that guide us in navigating our universe.

David Bohm had suggested that were we to view the cosmos without the lenses that outfit our telescopes, the universe would appear to us as a hologram. Pribram extended this insight by noting that were we deprived of the lenses of our eyes and the lens like processes of our other sensory receptors, we would be immersed in holographic experiences.

Other contributions

In the late 1940s and early 1950s, Pribram's neurobehavioral experiments established the composition of the limbic system and the executive functions of the prefrontal cortex. Pribram also discovered the sensory specific systems of the association cortex, and showed that these systems operate to organize the choices we make among sensory stimuli, not the sensing of the stimuli themselves.

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