Collaborative Research: Building a Unified Theory-Driven Methodology for Identification of Elementary Cognitive Systems

一瞬间又一瞬间，我们吸收了所有我们能用感官收集到的信息，并将这些信息组织成物体和事件。这是我们在真实的世界中发挥作用的能力的基础。虽然我们可以笼统地谈论我们如何以及为什么以如此有效和高效的方式运作，但令人满意的科学解释需要更多。特别是，它需要一种方法来将我们可以测量的事情--具体地说，我们选择某些行为的频率和做出这些选择所花费的时间--相互联系起来，并与我们如何以及为什么做这些事情的假设联系起来。目前，还没有一种通用的方法可以做到这一点：在这种支持下完成的工作将从根本上改变这种状况，创造一种统一的理论方法来描述我们组织世界感知的方式，将开辟许多将行为和神经生物学联系起来的研究途径。在这个项目将产生的理论语言的帮助下，将有系统的和定义明确的方法来测试我们对感知信息做什么以及我们如何做的竞争假设。至关重要的是，因为这种语言将是非常普遍的，不会与一套特定的想法或理论联系在一起，来自竞争观点的科学家将能够使用一个共同的词汇来构建他们的想法，这是目前不可能的。此外，由于这种语言将是数学的，它将拥有特殊的严格性和内部一致性。最后，这种语言将通过应用于当代知觉组织研究中的一系列棘手问题来展示其效用和力量。

Instant by instant, we take in all of the information that we can gather with our senses, and we organize that information into objects and events. This is the foundation for our ability to function in the real world. While we can talk in general terms about how and why we function with such effectiveness and efficiency, a satisfactory scientific explanation requires much more. In particular, it requires a way of relating the things we can measure---specifically, the frequency with which we choose certain to choose certain actions and the time it takes to make those choices---to each other and to our hypotheses for how and why we do these things. Currently, there is no general way of doing this: the work to be accomplished with this support will fundamentally change this state of affairs.The creation of a unified theoretical approach to characterizing the ways in which we organize our perception of the world will open up numerous avenues of research linking behavior and neurobiology. With the aid of the theoretical language that this project will produce, there will be systematic and well-defined ways of testing competing hypotheses for both what we do with perceptual information and how we do it. Critically, because this language will be extremely general and will not be tied to a particular set of ideas or theory, scientists from competing perspectives will be able to frame their ideas using a common vocabulary, something that is not currently possible. In addition, since this language will be mathematical, it will possess an exceptional level of rigor and internal consistency. Finally, this language will demonstrate its utility and power by being applied to a set of thorny issues in the contemporary study of perceptual organization.