Neuroscience has made remarkable advances in accounting for how the brain performs its various functions. Consciousness, too, is usually approached in functional terms: the goal is to understand how the brain represents information, accesses that information, and acts on it. While useful for prediction, this functional, information-processing approach leaves out the subjective structure of experience: it does not account for how experience feels. Here, we consider a simple model of how a “grid-like” network meant to resemble posterior cortical areas can represent spatial information and act on it to perform a simple “fixation” function. Using standard neuroscience tools, we show how the model represents topographically the retinal position of a stimulus and triggers eye muscles to fixate or follow it. Encoding, decoding, and tuning functions of model units illustrate the working of the model in a way that fully explains what the model does. However, these functional properties have nothing to say about the fact that a human fixating a stimulus would also “see” it—experience it at a location in space. Using the tools of Integrated Information Theory, we then show how the subjective properties of experienced space—its extendedness—can be accounted for in objective, neuroscientific terms by the “cause-effect structure” specified by the grid-like cortical area. By contrast, a “map-like” network without lateral connections, meant to resemble a pretectal circuit, is functionally equivalent to the grid-like system with respect to representation, action, and fixation but cannot account for the phenomenal properties of space.

中文翻译：

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地图和网格

神经科学在解释大脑如何执行各种功能方面取得了显着的进步。意识通常也是从功能角度来看待的：目标是理解大脑如何表示信息、获取信息并对其采取行动。虽然对于预测很有用，但这种功能性的信息处理方法忽略了体验的主观结构：它没有考虑体验的感受。在这里，我们考虑一个简单的模型，说明类似于后皮质区域的“网格状”网络如何表示空间信息并对其进行操作以执行简单的“固定”功能。使用标准的神经科学工具，我们展示了该模型如何在地形上表示刺激的视网膜位置并触发眼部肌肉注视或跟随它。模型单元的编码、解码和调整功能以充分解释模型功能的方式说明了模型的工作原理。然而，这些功能特性与人类固定刺激物也会“看到”它——在空间中的某个位置体验它——这一事实无关。然后，我们利用综合信息理论的工具，展示了如何通过网格状皮层区域指定的“因果结构”，以客观的神经科学术语来解释体验空间的主观属性（其扩展性）。相比之下，没有横向连接的“地图状”网络，类似于顶盖前电路，在表示、动作和固定方面在功能上等同于网格状系统，但无法解释空间的现象属性。