Hey folks,
Long time admirer of HTM here, though I’m only just now delving into coding & applying nupic models (having just earned my PhD and now working in a more applied setting). My primary field (other than statistics) is the behavioural phenomena of attention, and where I’ve long wondered how HTM might include mechanisms of attention, I’m enthused to see this question is beginning to be addressed. I thought it might be helpful for others if I pointed to a couple papers I’ve written that outline the behavioural phenomena of attention and a taxonomy thereof. They don’t have any computational theory, but I thought they might help introduce some terminology and context for others thinking about attention.
The first is this chapter, which appears to be available in full on google scholar (let me know if it’s not for you; I can post a pdf instead):
On the Modes & Domains of Attention
The second is discussed in the first, but if you skip to the conclusion, there’s an enumeration of a variety of phenomena of temporal attention not discussed as fully in the first:
Isolating exogenous and endogenous modes of temporal attention
I’m happy to answer any questions on these, and am excited to see if I can eventually start making some contributions to HTM once I get up to speed.