In a 1967 symposium Luria proposed that specific cortical and non-specific subcortical cortical systems interacted in the regulation of behaviour according to “geographic principles”. The adaptive nature of ‘dominating foci’ elicited transmission, selection, amplification, and inhibition of the required information from objects and scenes. A less static, more dynamic, and contemporary approach to the study of consciousness has been advocated by Kinsbourne (1996). This ‘integrated field model” posits that consciousness is embodied in “intermediary representations”, not in sensory primitives, nor in those representations pertaining to the highest levels of abstraction. Therefore in an adaptive field comprising scenes and objects subsidiary clusters of entrained representations co-exist across the whole brain through volume oscillation. Distinct representations can fire synchronously or in joint oscillation for potential inclusion into the dominant focus. Through analysis of blindsight and neglect phenomenon preserved gestalt completion of incomplete figures must then occur through the activity of expectancy set or motor attention. Amelioration of neglect through various means of stimulation suggests that a hemifield loss of part of a representation that was initially insufficiently activated can then become integrated into the conscious field and thus that the initial representations were intact. Effective opponent-processing between or within the hemispheres is necessary for equilibrating representations across a plane and therefore to represent an object one must have access to the requisite spatial domain. In order for a representation to activate or conversely inhibit a hemisphere it must be of sufficient magnitude, completeness, precision, and longevity and it must not make incompatible demands on output mechanisms. I will synthesize findings from cases of pure word deafness, atypical localization of language, subcortical processing, fMRI study of localization of vowels and vestibular functions, lesion study of gaze direction and sound localization, and akinetopsia into a synthetic review of audiovisual motor remapping.
Funded by NIMH grant #R01-MH069898 awarded to Jason J.S. Barton, MD., Ph.D.