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RESEARCH PRODUCT

Some Necessary Revisions of the Neuronal Model Concept of the Orienting Response

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Sokolov's neural trace model as well as his entropy model of the orienting response are examined. Both seem inadequate for empirical and theoretical reasons. The role of the relevance aspect of a stimulus is stressed. It is proposed to consider the information transmitted by a stimulus as in some way being weighted by the relevance of the context to which it belongs. It is furthermore proposed to restrict the neural trace concept to the physical properties of the stimulus. Major theoretical gain is achieved by viewing information content of a stimulus and its physical properties independently and by breaking the motivation determining the strength of an orienting response into a situation-specific part (relevance) and a stimulus-specific part (orienting incentive).