Model of multi-modal cortical processing: Coherent learning in self-organizing modules

In this paper (An abbreviated version of some portions of this article appeared in reference Menard and Frezza-Buet (Menard, O., & Frezza-Buet, H. (2004). Rewarded multi-modal neuronal self-organization: Example of the arm reaching movement. In: Proceedings of international conference on advances in intelligent systems theory and application.), as part of the IJCNN 2005 conference proceedings, published under the IEEE copyright.), an original self-organizing model is presented, with experiments highlighting its ability to be used in different frameworks, as phonetic coding dependent on semantics and arm-reaching. The model relies on the coupling of the learning processes that stand at different self-organizing modules, and exhibits dynamics that can be discussed in terms of the binding of different modalities, scattered over the different modules. Such a binding property is based on an emerging constraint of keeping consistency between the modules. This process is induced by partial connectivity and appropriate neural field competition mechanisms.