A.V. Sergin - Leading Engineer, Ltd. Laboratory of Kaspersky, Moscow. E-mail: post-box2000@mail.ru V.Ya. Sergin - Dr. Sci. (Phys.- Math.), Leading Scientist Researcher, Laboratory of Neural Networks Institute of Mathematical Problems of Biology RAS (Pushchino, Moscow region). E-mail: v.sergin@mail.ru

How do humans become aware of anything, be it a flash of light, a scent or a sensation of pain - There is no conclusive answer to this question yet, though it is a key to understanding any form of consciousness. This paper postulates a mechanism of auto-identification, which consists in the relay of a pattern of excitation produced by a stimulus in one or several cortical areas, back to the neurons of these cortical areas through massively parallel feedback. The identical (or by and large coinciding) patterns of excitation produced by the stimulus and relayed through back projections, add together in the same neuronal structures resulting in their intensive firing. This cyclic process accentuates the characteristics and intensifies the stimulus mapping thus providing the best conditions for distributed long-term memory categorizing the stimulus. The result of the categorization - a sensation or mental image - is expressed physiologically by a neuronal activity pattern which is also included in the cycle of auto-identification, thus providing for intensive mapping of the subjective meaning of the stimulus. The mapping of sensory categories stored in memory, by neuronal activity patterns is explicit representation of these categories, i. e. in the same form as external signals. The data stored in long-term memory are thus converted into the explicit form. The explicit representation of internal data enables their categorization in the same way as external signals. The mapping of sensory categories (i.e. internal data) by neuronal activity patterns is therefore representation of these categories to the subject as elements of the mapping of the world outside. As a result, the outside world is represented to the subject not by the objective characteristics of the physical world, but by sensory categories: color, taste, odor, tactile sensation, etc., which constitutes the phenomenon of sensory awareness. Indeed, the capability for explicit internal representation of both external objects and internally constructed mental images is the most noticeable and specific faculty of consciousness. The functioning of consciousness is always related to the representations of mental images, sounds, smells, tactile sensations, etc, and is inseparable from them. No conscious cerebral activity is possible without processes of explicit representation of data, which is likely the key process of awareness. Sensory awareness is the awareness of external events mapped by cortical neuronal activity patterns, which become internal cerebral signals. The operational cerebral activities in the cogitative process are also mapped by cortical neuronal activity pat-terns. The neurophysiologic mechanism of awareness of operational cerebral activities is can may therefore be similar to the mechanism of awareness of sensory signals. The mechanism of auto-identification is this a versatile apparatus of awareness of signals generated whether by the sensory input or the brain. The study permits to claim that awareness is a process of representation of internal data in an explicit form. The explicit representation of sensory categories produces sensory awareness. The explicit representation of operational cerebral activities produces thought. If visual awareness is the vision of external events, thought is the vision of results of operational cerebral activities. The cerebral cortex is known to consist of hundreds of millions of vertically oriented neuronal populations (mini-columns) with a great number of vertical connections and relatively small number of horizontal connections. These processing modules contain massive cortico-cortical feedback connections relaying excitation immediately or through the nuclei of subcortical structures. This anatomical organization of the cortex provides the best conditions for cyclic processes of auto-identification. The postulated mechanism of auto-identification on the level of neuronal chains makes it possible to predict experimentally verifiable consequences on the psychical level, which can be either confirmed or disproved. The process of auto-identification allows to understand the nature of such properties of perception as the temporal threshold of distinguishing successive signals, backward masking, perceptual moment, flashes merging into continuous images and many others. The explanation of a broad range of mental phenomena shows that auto-identification is not an isolated mechanism of a sole mysterious phenomenon (i.e. awareness), but a base neuronal apparatus underlying conscious cerebral activities.

 

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