Binding Hierarchies: A Basis for Dynamic Perceptual Grouping

Since it has been suggested that the brain binds its fragmentary representations of perceptual events via phase-locking of stimulated neural oscillators, it is important to determine how extended synchronization can occur in a clustered organization of cells possessing a distribution of firing rates. To answer that question, we establish the basic conditions for the existence of a binding mechanism based on synchronized oscillations. In addition, we present a simple hierarchical architecture of feedback units that not only induces robust phase-locking within and segregation between perceptual groups, but also serves as a generic binding machine.