The subject of this short monograph (English + Italian = 160 pages) is the author's extension to the models of the Italian Operative School, a school whose existence was hitherto unknown to this reviewer (and hence what you read here about it I got from the book). The translation (by the author) is quite good, though I wish he had translated many more of the quotations. This school, whose proponents include S. Ceccata, E. von Glasersfeld, V. Somenzi and G. Vaccarino, apparently has as its main tenet the necessity of a process-oriented model for the understanding of mental activity (which I find most applaudable). The major focus of the author's analysis is language and meaning, and perhaps there is something here for those so inclined. The introduction contains the standard castigation of various philosophers and schools thereof for fuzzy thinking, and, as is usual with any model of mind, makes vast claims for its value and applicability (a sin which this reviewer as well has committed!).
The central process (or activity, if you will) in the model is attentional movement a sensory input does not `exist' if the sensor in question is not the focus of the attention movement mechanism. The author here is in contact with a profound idea - that information arises from change, but does not carry this through on a cybernetic level. The author emphasizes that `mental objects' necessarily must have a fleeting existence, and hence mental objects which require continuous mental presence require that the model postulate a sort of `polling' of the focus on the sensors/mental objects in question. This, together with the fact that the model does not contain itself (ie. the mechanism of attentional movement - the author's `doors' and `keys'), are in my view major weaknesses.
In general, the model proposes a more-or-less standard, feed-back based, function-composition hierarchy for sensory-motor control and mental abstraction. James S. Albus' Brains, Behavior, and Robotics [BYTE Books, ca. 1988] contains a considerably longer and more detailed attempt in this direction. However, both Albus' and the present book's attempts, while noble, are unconvincing.
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