The Priority Map

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 mapmechanism 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. Asking about structureFew doubt that neural facts about animal brains inform psychological facts about these animals' minds.How these brains are built, what kinds of neural processes they undergo, plays a role in determining the animals' psychological states and processes.But how exactly do neural facts inform psychological facts?We largely do not know the answer to this question.In this paper I want to contribute to addressing the question.I focus on a specific instance of it, the question of how facts about neural structure can bear on facts concerning representational structure.There has been much discussion, in recent philosophy of mind, about mental states' representational structure.Representational mental states are partly constituted by their representational contents.Their representational contents are ways of representing, or modes of presentation.They set veridicality conditions for these mental states. 2 Very roughly, the idea is that representational states' contents are (often) themselves composed from representational constituents, or constituent-representations (or modes of presentation).To form a complete representational content, these representational constituents must combine in some specific way.The way in which they combine, their mode of combination, 1 Special thanks to Tyler Burge.Thanks also to