David LaBerge
David LaBerge (born 1929) is a neuropsychologist specializing in the attention process and the role of apical dendrites in cognition and consciousness.
He was also a member of the adjunct faculty in psychology and biology at Bard College at Simon's Rock from 1997 to 2007 and was a visiting scholar at the University of Washington, Seattle from 2009 - 2011.
Distinguished Teaching Award, College of Liberal Arts, University of Minnesota; University of Minnesota Students Association Distinguished Service Award.
Mathematical models of choice behavior: A model for neutral elements (1959a, b) provided a way to represent noise elements in the Estes and Burke (1953) choice theory.
A recruitment model for choice behavior (1962, 1994) assumes that processing a stimulus involves the recruiting (or accumulation) of elements by alternative response counters until a criterion number is reached and the corresponding response is evoked.
Early experiments of attention in response time experiments: Stimulus processing is biased by relative frequency of presentation (1964), by incentive value (1967), and by inserting an informative cue into a trial (1970).
Studies of thalamic involvement in selective attention: A brain scan study of the human pulvinar during sustained selective attention (1990) with Monte Buchsbaum.
A neural network simulation study of thalamic circuit operations in selective attention (1992).
Development of an apical dendrite theory of cognition, attention, and consciousness.
The neural foundation of experience: the role of vibrating neurons.
The hypothesis that the apical dendrite resonates was illustrated informally by LaBerge and his daughter, Anne La Berge in three performances of a work entitled Resonant Dendrites, (2006, 2007, 2009), which featured film, narrative voice samples and music.
A formal description of a theory of electric resonance in apical dendrites appeared in an article by Kasevich & LaBerge (2010), which shows how an apical dendrite can fine tune its own membrane oscillations to a specific peak frequency, and narrow the width of the resonance curve around this peak to less than 1 Hz.
A more recent article by LaBerge & Kasevich (2013) describes signaling by neurons as the neural correlate of objective information processing and resonating in clusters of apical dendrites as the neural correlate of subjective impressions (e.g., impressions of sounds, colors, and feelings).
These two "articles provide theoretical support for the hypothesis that apical dendrite resonance supplements neural signaling as a major mode of neural function.
Furthermore, the resonance-based subjective impressions may be regarded as the contents of consciousness.
His major extracurricular activity was to serve for 21 years as music director and Conductor of the Minnesota Bach Society Orchestra and Chorus from 1959 to 1980.
He was the director of the 50-voice South Sound Classical Choir in the Tacoma, WA area until May 2019.
Effect of preliminary trials on rate of conditioning in a simple prediction situation.
), Attention & Performance IV, New York: Academic Press, pp 71–85.
LaBerge, D. & Brown, V. (1989) Theory of attentional operations in shape identification.
Positron emission tomographic measurements of pulvinar activity during an attention task.
A network simulation of thalamic circuit operations in selective attention.
LaBerge, D. (1994) Quantitative models of attention and response processes in shape identification tasks.
Deficit of preparatory attention in children with frontal lobe epilepsy.
Attention, consciousness, and electrical wave activity within the cortical column.
Sustained attention and apical dendrite activity in recurrent circuits.
Close Encounters, the 4th European conference of the Society for Science, Literature, and the Arts.
The apical dendrite theory of consciousness, Neural Networks, 20,1004-1020.
Claire Trevor School of the Arts, University of California, Irvine.
Neuroelectric Tuning of Cortical Oscillations by Apical Dendrites in Loop Circuits.
