title: An attractor lattice model with latent emergent order.
abstract: A lattice model is developed to clarify the concept of latent or intrinsic emergent order. This is motivated by the theory of primary mental models, which proposes that conscious experience is an emergent macrostate of its neural substrate characterized by such order. Elements of the model interact to reduce an energy that depends on the relation-ships among elements comprising clusters rather than on the states of the elements themselves. Simulations confirm that macroscopic order emerges: two attractors develop at a critical noise level, and the macrostate predicts its own future. Descriptive analyses demonstrate that this macrostate possesses latent order: each emergent state is characterized by degenerate state vectors that are nearly orthogonal, and singular value decomposition of a matrix of frequencies of occurrence of states of the overlapping clusters of elements occurring in the attractor states detects two latent dimensions that reveal the model's two attractors.
authors.affiliation: Department of Psychology, Indiana University of Pennsylvania, PA 15705, USA. pavloski@iup.edu
authors.forename: Raymond
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Pavloski
mesh_terms: D003243:Consciousness / Q000502:physiology*; D006801:Humans; D008390:Markov Chains; D008954:Models, Biological; D009474:Neurons / Q000502:physiology*