Wang Zichun

Event file

Event file, is a network that contains temporary binding codes of the relevant features (including stimuli features and action features) of the perceptual event, which proposed by Bernhard Hommel in 1998.

Background: binding problem

Previous studies show the primate brain codes the features of perceptual events in a distributed way. For example, the different features (i.e. color, size, shape and location) of an object are represented in different areas in the visual cortex. But how these codes of one object integrates in the brain? That is the binding problem. To specific, the problem needs a mechanism that can gather the codes together to identify the object when a person sees it again.

Different theories of binding propose various solutions, including hierarchical combination of information at later stages of processing (Riesenhuber & Poggio, 1999), temporal synchrony (Singer, 1999; von der Malsburg, 1999), and attentional mechanisms (Reynolds & Desimone, 1999; Treisman & Gelade, 1980). Among these theories, the common point is that the location is the key in the binding process. In Treisman and Gelade's study (1980), spatial attention was regarded as the glue that binds an object’s features together.

Object files

The term “event files” is based on “object files” which created by Kahneman and Tresiman (1984; Kahneman, Treisman, & Gibbs, 1992; Treisman, 1993) in her classic Feature integration theory. According to object files theory, when attention is focused on an object on a certain location, features of the object are stored in “object files” immediately and automatically. Once another stimuli occurs on the similar position with the previous object, the switch of this file will turn on and the prior experience and relative features will be retrieved and activated, which results in the identification of the object. If the new object has similar features with the previous one, then information in the existed file is updated. However, if the features of two objects have no common or similarities, a new object file will be created. Comparing with the creation of a new file, updating the the previous file will spend less time.

However, the problem of integrating distributed codes does not occur only in perceptual processing. If attention turns to action, object files may also include action-related and response-related information. So, there is a further hypothesis: the feature combination may also include the action and related responding. Hommel and other researchers supported this hypothesis and extended object file theory.

Event files

In 1998, Bernhard Hommel first proposed the concept of event files formally. He integrated previous studies and conducted four experiments to test the hypothesis that the response features also are integrated into event files with other object features. The results supported the hypothesis and actually the event file is viewed as an information enriched object file. Hommel (2004) proposed that when a subject perceive an event, an episodic event file – a network of bindings that temporarily link codes of the relevant features of the perceptual event, an accompanying action, and the task context will be created. When the subject encounters another event that contains one or more features that have been collected into a "event file", the brain will search for a prat of or the whole "event file" automatically and respond to this stimuli, like establishing a conditional reflex.As the same as object files, not all stimulus will activate the response, only those features that are directly or indirectly task-relevant.

Hommel defined the “event file” is a multi-layered network of temporarily link codes of perceptual events, the current task context, and the actions performance. They are the brain addresses these problems by creating.

See also

Attention

Anne Treisman

Reference

• Chen, Z., & Yeh, Y.-Y. (2013). Perceived object continuity and spontaneous retrieval of features from an inhibited object. PLoS One, 8(5), e63264. http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0063264.
• Hommel, B. (1998) Event files: evidence for automatic integration of stimulus–response episodes. Visual Cogn. 5, 183–216
• Kahneman, D., Treisman, A., & Gibbs, B. J. (1992). The reviewing of object files: Object-specific integration of information. Cognitive Psychology, 24, 175–219. doi:10.1016/0010-0285(92)90007-O
• Reynolds, J. H., & Desimone, R. (1999). The role of neural mechanisms of attention in solving the binding problem. Neuron, 24, 19–29. doi:10.1016/S0896-6273(00)80819-3
• Riesenhuber, M., & Poggio, T. (1999). Hierarchical models of object recognition in cortex. Nature Neuroscience, 2, 1019–1025. doi:10.1038/14819
• Singer, W. (1999). Neuronal synchrony: A versatile code for the definition of relations? Neuron, 24, 49–65. doi:10.1016/S0896-6273(00)80821-1
• Treisman, A.,& Gelade,G. (1980). A feature-integrationtheoryof attention. Cognitive Psychology, 12 , 97–136.
• Treisman, A. (1996). The binding problem. Current Opinion in Neurobiology, 6, 171–178. doi:10.1016/S0959-4388(96)80070-5
• Treisman, A. (1993). The perception of features and objects. In A. Baddeley & L. Weiskrantz (Eds), Attention: Selection, awareness, and control (pp. 5–35). Oxford: Clarendon Press.
• Treisman, A. (1999). Solutions to the binding problem: Progress through controversy and convergence. Neuron, 24, 105–125. doi:10.1016/S0896-6273(00)80826-0
• von der Malsburg, C. (1999). The what and why of binding: The modeler’s perspective. Neuron, 24, 95–104. doi:10.1016/S0896-6273(00)80825-9