Mental Representations: A computational-neuroscience scheme

We discuss a series of problems facing referential theories of mental representations and we propose a scheme based on neurophysiological principles that should meet previous limitations. According to this scheme, mental representations are brain traces linked to stimuli in the environment , via a causal but probabilistic process of categorical perception, and uctuations in activity reeect uctuations in the conndence-level of perceptual and cognitive hypotheses. The scheme provides an explanation for cases of mis-representation and is consistent with the abundance of recurrent connections in the cortex, which play an important role in mediating a process of interpretation and of binding of relational properties via temporal synchronisation.