Spin-based modelling of perception as emergent from contextualized internal evaluation

Abstract

Abstract We develop a microscopic model of perception of an interoceptive sensation in which spin-like variables encode an organism's internal evaluation of embodied vital norms associated with the sensation. Spins can take positive, negative or neutral values. These local evaluations interact on a lattice embedded in the environmental context, and their collective configuration gives rise to a macroscopic perceptual state. By applying a coarse-graining procedure to a family of symmetric spin models, we derive a macroscopic Landau-type functional that makes explicit the mechanism by which key phenomenological features of perception emerge from microscopic evaluative interactions. A central result is that the inclusion of a neutral evaluative state fundamentally alters the structure of the perceptual landscape, enhancing entropy, lowering the critical threshold and increasing sensitivity to contextual input. These results establish a principal link between microscopic vital norms evaluations and large-scale perceptual organization of a sensation, offering a flexible framework to relate perceptual regulation and neurobiological modelling. The model integrates notions of neuroscience and cognitive science through the formalism of condensed matter field theory, providing a new theoretical language for describing the emergence of perceptual organization from microscopic evaluative interactions.