The full codam model

pp. 95-111

in: John G. Taylor, Solving the mind-body problem by the CODAM neural model of consciousness?, Berlin, Springer, 2013

Abstract

The CODAM network was designed in the late 1990s (Taylor JG. Race for consciousness. Bradford Book, Cambridge, MA, 1999; Taylor JG. Soc Neurosci Abstr 26:2231#839.3, 2000) so as to bring attention into the modern engineering control domain by updating it beyond ballistic control by the introduction of further components, such as by the presence of a predictor or forward model and of an error corrector. It also possesses a working memory module to hold the amplified input representing the attended stimulus so as to allow it to be available for general report around the brain for further processing. Such a process of singling out a stimulus for further work is the essence of attention acting as a filter. In a complex environment, with many distracters, such a filtering action is crucial to simplify the "world in the head" so allowing it to be used in an efficient manner at a higher level. Thus attention can be seen as a way to achieve simplified conscious report, without having to go through a possibly long list of external but unimportant stimuli for any task at hand.