09 June 2004

Low level representation

Interested in low level sensory representation? Non-conceptual content? Well, then this article "Rapid deterioration of pain sensory-discriminative information in short-term memory" by Rainville et. al in press at Pain (Science Direct link here) might be of interest to you.

These results are consistent with the possibility that short-term memory for pain and temperature sensation intensity relies on a transient analog representation that is quickly degraded and transformed into a more resistant but less precise categorical format. This implies that retrospective pain ratings obtained even after very short delays may be rather inaccurate but relatively reliable.


Ed. note: I don't know much about these cog sci/philosophy issues so no guarantees on relevance.

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