Discreteness and Continuity of Information in Consciousness

Neuroscience and Behavioral Physiology. 2021. Vol. 51. No. 9. P. 1344–1353.

Baklushev M., Ivanitsky G. A.

This article addresses the question iscusses of how information is organized in the human mind, particularly, the fundamental possibility of extracting any kind of structural units from the array of information perceived and processed, and the potential for identifying the smallest, "elementary" unit of information applicably to consciousness. The process of perception is regarded as a process in which information received from receptors is sequentially generalized, compared with previously acquired experience, and converted to material for forming high-level abstract concept. The process of "understanding" concepts is considered as a process opposite to the process forming them, i.e., the processtheir during which the mind's encounter with a previously assimilated concept reactivates the multitude of  images and associations which previously served as the material for its formation. The question of identifying key characteristics and most significant associative connections in the array of information is addressed with respect to the normal mind and pathology of the schizophrenia spectrum disorders.

Keywords: categorization, perception, schizophrenia, semantic memory, salience