What is the relationship between visual perception and the underlying neuronal activity in the visual cortical system? We (Crick and Koch, 1995) base out framework on the plausible hypothesis that the function of visual awareness is to produce the best current interpretation of the visual scene, in the light of past experience, and to make it available, for a sufficient time, to the parts of the brain that contemplate, plan and execute voluntary motor outputs (of one sort or another). This suggest that the neurons that express the neural correlate of consciousness (NCC) must project from visual cortices to the frontal lobe. This hypothesis, combined with the neuroanatomy of the macaque monkey, suggests that primates are not directly aware of neural activity in primary visual cortex, although they may be aware of such activity in extrastriate cortical areas (Crick & Koch, 1995). I will discuss electrophysiological, clinical as well as recent psychophysical evidence (Kolb & Braun, 1995) that directly supports this hypothesis. Finally, I will discuss the implications that such a strategy has for designing machine architectures that express some degree of awareness.

Christof Koch was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1956 and studied physics and philosophy at the University of Tuebingen in West Germany. He was awarded his PhD in biophysics from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics in Tuebingen in 1982 (under Profs. Valentin Braitenberg and Tomaso Poggio). He worked until 1986 at MIT's Artificial Intelligence Laboratory before joining the "Computation and Neural Systems" program at the California Institute of Technology where he is now Professor of Computation and Neural Systems.

Professor Koch's research focusses on understanding the biophysical mechanisms underlying information storage and processing in single neurons, in particular the computations underlying motion and visual attention in cortical networks in the mammalian visual system. His laboratory builds neuromorphic, analog, smart vision chips to solve a host of applied vision problems. Together with Dr. Francis Crick, he works on the neuronal basis of visual awareness and consciousness.

Professor Koch has published three books, well over hundred technical articles and has numerous patents in the area of analog VLSI vision chips (smart vision chips).

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