Abstract

How can we argue, from neural facts, that representational states exhibit some specific representational structure? This paper approaches the question through a case study on the priority map-mechanism that underlies our capacity to orient visual attention. Computational models from cognitive neuroscience describe this mechanism as operating over neural topographic structures. These neural structures exhibit the functional profile of topographic representational structure. I argue that this fact warrants attributing topographic structure to the priority map mechanism’s representational states.