Do you have an idea of how the Steering Subsystem can tell that Zoe is trying to get your attention with her speech?
I think you’re thinking about that kinda the wrong way around.
You’re treating “the things that Zoe does when she wants to get my attention” as a cause, and “my brain reacts to that” as the effect.
But I would say that a better perspective is: everybody’s brain reacts to various cues (sound level, pitch, typical learned associations, etc.), and Zoe has learned through life experience how to get a person’s attention by tapping into those cues.
So for example: If Zoe says “hey” to me, and I don’t notice, then Zoe might repeat “hey” a bit louder, higher-pitched, and/or closer to my head, and maybe also wave her hand, and maybe also poke me.
The wrong question is: “how does my brain know that louder and higher-pitched and closer sounds, concurrent with waving-hand motions and pokes, ought to trigger an orienting reaction?”.
The right perspective is: we have these various evolved triggers for orienting reactions, whose details we can think of as arbitrary (it’s just whatever was effective for noticing predators and prey and so on), and Zoe has learned from life experience various ways to activate those triggers in other people.
If she said your name, then maybe the Steering Subsystem might recognize your name (having used interpretability to get it from the Learning Subsystem?) and know she was talking to you?
Yup, STEP 1 is one of my “thought assessors” (probably somewhere in the amygdala) has learned from life experience that hearing my own name should trigger orienting to that sound; and then STEP 2 is that Zoe in turn has learned from life experience that saying someone’s name is a good way to get their attention.
Good questions!
I think you’re thinking about that kinda the wrong way around.
You’re treating “the things that Zoe does when she wants to get my attention” as a cause, and “my brain reacts to that” as the effect.
But I would say that a better perspective is: everybody’s brain reacts to various cues (sound level, pitch, typical learned associations, etc.), and Zoe has learned through life experience how to get a person’s attention by tapping into those cues.
So for example: If Zoe says “hey” to me, and I don’t notice, then Zoe might repeat “hey” a bit louder, higher-pitched, and/or closer to my head, and maybe also wave her hand, and maybe also poke me.
The wrong question is: “how does my brain know that louder and higher-pitched and closer sounds, concurrent with waving-hand motions and pokes, ought to trigger an orienting reaction?”.
The right perspective is: we have these various evolved triggers for orienting reactions, whose details we can think of as arbitrary (it’s just whatever was effective for noticing predators and prey and so on), and Zoe has learned from life experience various ways to activate those triggers in other people.
Yup, STEP 1 is one of my “thought assessors” (probably somewhere in the amygdala) has learned from life experience that hearing my own name should trigger orienting to that sound; and then STEP 2 is that Zoe in turn has learned from life experience that saying someone’s name is a good way to get their attention.