Wayne Wu

Does anyone know who first used the terms "top-down" versus "bottom-up" for attention? Or if endogenous versus exogenous came first, who used that first? Or for any other term. A reference would be awesome.

Home | phiVis

I'm so sorry not to be at this event in person, but this is a great workshop, where philosophers of perception and vision scientists meet in dialog. This afternoon at 1:15pm EST. Check out the line-up and RSVP for on-line attendance.

www.phivis.org

Ach! Sorry for that. We're bound by availability of space at the center. One thing we aim in our workshop is to have a very strong neuroscience presence, and to create a space for serious dialog between philosophy and neuroscience.

Thanks for the hashtags, Keith!

A Population Doctrine in Neuroscience Workshop A Population Doctrine in Neuroscience Workshop (Call for Papers) We are pleased to announce an interdisciplinary 2-day workshop held at the Center for Philosophy of Science at the University of Pittsb...

An upcoming philosophy of neuroscience conference CFP. The organizers strongly encourage submissions from neuroscientists doing population recording, & in particular short talks that draw on ongoing research to address the theoretical questions highlighted in the CFP:

philevents.org/event/show/1...

Movements of the Mind: A Theory of Attention, Intention and Action Abstract. Movements of the Mind explains what it is to be an agent. Focusing on mental agency, the book’s eponymous topic, it investigates an agent’s doing

Of course we talk about attention and action too (it is a show on free will!). If you're interested in the memory material it's discussed at more length in Movements of the Mind (chps. 3 and 4).

academic.oup.com/book/46088

Episode 97: Intention and Memory with Wayne Wu The Free Will Show · Episode

Thanks to Taylor Cyr and Matt Flummer for chatting about intention & memory. We talk about intention as memory & intending as remembering, forgetting what we're doing when we cross a threshold, and why research on working memory is research on intention.
open.spotify.com/episode/7gK0...

Ruth's article can be found here: www.cambridge.org/core/journal...

Here's my commentary on Ruth Rosenholtz's BBS article on attention in crisis. I bring out a different (familiar) view of what the crisis is and suggest one way to ban attention from cog neuro: stop fallaciously identifying attention w/ a mechanism. Attention is the explanandum.

bit.ly/WuCRISIS-BBS

The homunculus-inner ruler and all that I suspect (@sophisteuein.bsky.social). Within a well-defined neural network, ok. Would be interesting to track its development in neuroscience but we should question the usefulness of this division wrt psychological categories (e.g. "goal" as bias).

I would not advocate for a technical vocabulary that had as serious entries"top-down" and "bottom-up". Conceptual crutches, obfuscating.

I'm being slightly facetious here, but was it a single highway bottom to top? Perception on the ground floor, thought on the top? Nothing else?

The metaphor caught like wild fire (ok, mixing my metaphors). Maybe it was honest psycho-geography but why?

Historians of cognitive science, any ideas?

I'm writing lecture notes reading a certain influential paper whose general point I agree with...so I might put up random comments on it or related questions.

Who came up with top-down vs bottom-up? What architecture did they have in mind to ground a direction? What about lateral modulation?

As part of "technicalization", I propose a logical structure for attention: m-attention to T for R, mode (m), target (T), and response (R).

So top-down, whatever it means (another issue!) is the mode, information is the target. R can be updated belief/credence/posterior, motor response etc.

Attention Wayne Wu’s Attention was the first book to provide a systematic overview and assessment of different empirical and philosophical works on attention. In this revised and expanded second edition Wu disc...

Preview of Attention 2. Intro, and an important part of Chapter 1.

www.routledge.com/Attention/Wu...

How about: selection of information to guide behavior, with "behavior" understood broadly to include judgments, updating beliefs, forming memories as well as typical body stuff (orientation, movement)? Then, difference disappears.

This is, of course, a point about a term/concept, but the issue is not fussing about words...it's noting a problem in theorizing about attention. We should develop *technical* notions uniformly used in the field (cf. Shannon on "information" and information).

A not helpful concept in the theory of attention: *attentional control* as in e.g., top-down attentional control.

1. Is it a type of control *of* attention?
2. Is it attention a controller *of*...?

Two different psychological phenomena, collapsed in an unhelpful, all-too-common, conceptualization.

Attention by Wayne Wu: https://doi.org/10.21428/e2759450.3ce3f8af

Hi Keith. Weird. No ebook is listed. I'll ask (alas, I didn't make it to Ireland, but will be in touch about hopefully connecting with you next year).

I made a starter pack to follow your favorite WomWoMs (Women of Working Memory)

go.bsky.app/78fcoth

You can ping me to be added!

Attention Wayne Wu’s Attention was the first book to provide a systematic overview and assessment of different empirical and philosophical works on attention. In this revised and expanded second edition Wu disc...

I rewrote Attention (2nd edition) in to engage scientists AND philosophers on attention. I am an optimist not skeptic: we deeply understand attention. I show why (and how) and discuss philosophical consequences. The book is currently discounted & due in late Dec.
www.routledge.com/Attention/Wu...

Attention Wayne Wu’s Attention was the first book to provide a systematic overview and assessment of different empirical and philosophical work on attention. In this revised and expanded second edition Wu discu...

Hello bksy. Been a while. Those interested in attention and want a philosophical and optimistic take on the science and the philosophy, this might be of interest:

www.routledge.com/Attention/Wu...

1st 2 chapters of my book still free from Oxford UP. The book is expensive so if you know someone who would be interested in an emiprical-philosophical account of agency, attention and their relation, point them to the free download (soon gone). Please repost:

academic.oup.com/book/46088?s...

Does attention gates consciousness? Come to discussion in 20 minutes links below. Some great work. I will critically discuss.

Neural Mechanisms Online
(website)
Friday 22 March 2024
Webinar
h16-18 CET / h15-17 GMT
(check your local time here)

Join at:
unito.webex.com/unito-en/j.p...

Movements of the Mind: A Theory of Attention, Intention and Action Abstract. Movements of the Mind explains what it is to be an agent. Focusing on mental agency, the book’s eponymous topic, it investigates an agent’s doing thin

Um, the ENTIRE book seems to be available for free right now. This is my book, Movements of the Mind, a theory of agency, attention and intention.

academic.oup.com/book/46088?s...

Come to philosophyofbrains.com/2024/03/11/w...

to discuss

Hard to feel that this matters much given what's happening in the world...but if you need a break and want to hear about the nature of agency and mental action I'll be blogging about my book at brainsblog next Monday (chp 1 will be available).
philosophyofbrains.com

academic.oup.com/book/46088?s...

I've helped organize the following event with Jackie Gottlieb from Columbia and Raphael Rosenberg, an art historian from Uni Wien at the Italian Academy at Columbia. Please come if you can! Do register (we need a head count)!

italianacademy.columbia.edu/events/atten...

Any suggestions for a gentle introduction to the biology of habits and of addiction? Accessible, with some guideance, to undergraduates with little biology.

Lots of great books available at OUPPhilosophy at a substantial discount.

Want to understand what agency is, the role of attention, intention and memory and how the mind moves, tied to the neurobiology? Apply 40% discount EXAPAE24 to this book:

global.oup.com/academic/pro...