Tracking External Space through Internal Timing Delays in the Human Brain

We apply the neurophysics MePMoS (Memory-Prediction-Motion-Sensing) model to gain insight into the unsolved problem of how the brain robustly recognizes familiar objects, independently from their orientation or apparent size. By connecting experimental human reaction time delays to the specific spatial properties of each recognized object, we show that while we consciously recognize a familiar object when rotated, scaled, and translated, we unconsciously require more time in our processing, based on how distorted the object is from how we memorized it. MePMoS theory proposes that the brain uses timing delays as a tool for keeping track of spatial distortions, such that it can perform internal calculations for inverse transformations to reformat a distorted image back into a “match” with stored memory. Additionally, it is possible that different types of coordinate transformations are mediated by timing delays within microcircuits involving distinct brain waves. We show experimental evidence, along with a model, for how the human brain can recognize an object in any spatial orientation from a single representation in stored memory.