Holographic model of temporal recall [50]

Abstract

How do we manage to recognize immediately, and to recall without effort, familiar words, sentences and other behavioural sequences? I suggest that we employ a system which is the temporal analogue of optical holography1-3. The analogy between holography and visual memory has already attracted attention in the literature, but this is not quite the thought that I shall pursue here ; rather I shall consider the time dimension, because any perceptual event must certainly be associated with cerebral happenings which are extended not only in space but in time. If a system of this kind were indeed used by the brain, not only would some familiar phenomena of perception be naturally explained, but the cells or cell clusters responsible for laying down sensory information should have a certain property which might be accessible to experimental test. © 1968 Nature Publishing Group.