Synergetics of Cognition

the long version

The theoretical and experimental study of cognition has become an interdisciplinary enterprise in which fields ranging from neuroscience and psychology through biology to the computer sciences, physics and mathematics are involved. This multi-disciplinary aspect is strongly reflected in this book. It includes the most recent experimental findings on intercolumnar synchronization of oscillatory responses in the visual cortex as well as theories of chaotic phase transitions of neural aggregates on the macroscopic level. Experimental and theoretical results on perception, including early vision, Gestalt-theoretical aspects of vision, perception and motor control are reported. Links between the micro- and macro-level are established via models of neurocomputers and via the concepts of synergetics, which is one of the main underlying themes of this volume. The contributions reveal a remarkable convergence of ideas and concepts in the modern science of cognition, in which the former ideas of Gestalt-theory can also be adequately incorporated.