Looking into the Brain of Buridan’s Ass

Pessiglione, Mathias; Clairis, Nicolas

doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2019.02.025

Cited by 1 publication

(1 citation statement)

References 12 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…This quote by 12th century Persian philosopher Abu Hamid al-Ghazali elegantly illustrates the merit of selective attention. The same notion is illustrated by the well-known Buridan’s ass paradox ( Pessiglione and Clairis, 2019 ). A hungry donkey placed between equally appealing piles of hay will not starve to death in the middle because its brain possesses mechanisms that forces it to select and behaviorally commit to its decision.…”

Section: The Ancient Competition For Orientation and The Ecological V...mentioning

confidence: 81%

The Ecological View of Selective Attention

Lev-Ari

Beeri

Gutfreund

2022

Front. Integr. Neurosci.

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Accumulating evidence is supporting the hypothesis that our selective attention is a manifestation of mechanisms that evolved early in evolution and are shared by many organisms from different taxa. This surge of new data calls for the re-examination of our notions about attention, which have been dominated mostly by human psychology. Here, we present an hypothesis that challenges, based on evolutionary grounds, a common view of attention as a means to manage limited brain resources. We begin by arguing that evolutionary considerations do not favor the basic proposition of the limited brain resources view of attention, namely, that the capacity of the sensory organs to provide information exceeds the capacity of the brain to process this information. Moreover, physiological studies in animals and humans show that mechanisms of selective attention are highly demanding of brain resources, making it paradoxical to see attention as a means to release brain resources. Next, we build on the above arguments to address the question why attention evolved in evolution. We hypothesize that, to a certain extent, limiting sensory processing is adaptive irrespective of brain capacity. We call this hypothesis the ecological view of attention (EVA) because it is centered on interactions of an animal with its environment rather than on internal brain resources. In its essence is the notion that inherently noisy and degraded sensory inputs serve the animal’s adaptive, dynamic interactions with its environment. Attention primarily functions to resolve behavioral conflicts and false distractions. Hence, we evolved to focus on a particular target at the expense of others, not because of internal limitations, but to ensure that behavior is properly oriented and committed to its goals. Here, we expand on this notion and review evidence supporting it. We show how common results in human psychophysics and physiology can be reconciled with an EVA and discuss possible implications of the notion for interpreting current results and guiding future research.

show abstract

Section: The Ancient Competition For Orientation and The Ecological V...mentioning

confidence: 81%