Crate temporal_field 

Temporal Field - Ring buffer substrate for cognitive architectures

The brain does not poll - one spark cascades.

ASTRO_004 compliant: No floats. Signal (polarity × magnitude × multiplier) throughout.

Core Types

• Signal: Universal 3-byte neural signal (polarity: i8, magnitude: u8, multiplier: u8)
• TemporalField: Ring buffer with decay and pub/sub events

Architecture: Field / Writer / Reader

The system separates into three roles:

1. Field - The substrate: ring buffer with decay
2. Writers - Anything that writes to regions (cochlea, tokenizer, motor, etc.)
3. Readers - FieldObservers that receive events when thresholds cross

Multiple writers can write to the same field (additive semantics). Multiple readers can subscribe to the same field (pub/sub). Writes automatically fire events to all readers when thresholds cross.

Core Concepts

• Ring buffer: Fixed memory, oldest frames auto-evicted
• Decay per tick: Time encoded in values, not metadata (retention: u8, 255 = 1.0)
• Regions: Spatial partitioning for multi-channel integration
• Pub/sub: Writes fire events to observers automatically
• Signal: Compact neural representation (s = polarity × magnitude × multiplier)

Integer Conventions

Parameter	Type	Scale	Examples
retention	u8	255 = 1.0	242 ≈ 0.95, 230 ≈ 0.90, 128 = 0.50
threshold	u32	sum of magnitude²	524288 = 32 dims × 128²
weight	u8	100 = 1.0×	150 = 1.5×, 80 = 0.8×
energy	u32	Σ(magnitude²)	max = 64 × 255² = 4,161,600

Example: Multimodal Binding Detection

This example shows the pattern used for concept grounding - detecting when audio and text patterns co-occur (e.g., hearing “door” while seeing the word).

use temporal_field::{TemporalField, FieldConfig, FieldEvent, MonitoredRegion, FnObserver};
use ternary_signal::Signal;
use std::sync::Arc;

// Region definitions (like SensoryField's ModalityRegions)
const AUDIO_REGION: std::ops::Range<usize> = 0..64;
const TEXT_REGION: std::ops::Range<usize> = 64..128;

// 1. Create the Field (the substrate)
// 128 dims, 50 frames, retention 242 (≈0.95)
let config = FieldConfig::new(128, 50, 242);
let mut field = TemporalField::new(config);

// 2. Configure monitored regions (what triggers events)
// Threshold: energy needed to activate (e.g., 100_000 = ~50 dims at mag 45)
field.monitor_region(MonitoredRegion::new("audio", AUDIO_REGION, 100_000));
field.monitor_region(MonitoredRegion::new("text", TEXT_REGION, 100_000));
field.set_convergence_threshold(2); // Fire when 2+ regions active

// 3. Subscribe Reader (binding detector)
field.subscribe(Arc::new(FnObserver(|event| {
    match event {
        FieldEvent::Convergence { active_regions, total_energy } => {
            // Binding opportunity! Audio + text co-occurred
            println!("BINDING: {} regions, energy={}", active_regions.len(), total_energy);
        }
        FieldEvent::RegionActive { region, energy, .. } => {
            println!("Region {:?} activated with energy {}", region, energy);
        }
        _ => {}
    }
})));

// 4. Writers write to their regions using Signals
// Cochlea writes audio features (magnitude 128 = moderate activation)
let audio_features = vec![Signal::positive(128); 64];
field.write_region(&audio_features, AUDIO_REGION);

// Tokenizer writes text embedding
let text_embedding = vec![Signal::positive(100); 64];
field.write_region(&text_embedding, TEXT_REGION);
// ^ This triggers Convergence event because both regions are now active

// 5. Time advances - decay happens automatically
field.tick(); // All magnitudes decay by retention factor

Key Insight

The field doesn’t know what audio or text means. It just knows that patterns co-occurred within a temporal window. Meaning emerges from the binding.

Structs

FieldConfig

Configuration for a temporal field.

FieldVector

Signal-based vector for temporal fields.

FnObserver

Function-based observer for simple cases

MonitoredRegion

A region being monitored for activity with hysteresis thresholds.

Signal

Signal: polarity × magnitude × multiplier (s = p × m × k)

TemporalField

The temporal field - ring buffer with decay and pub/sub events.

TriggerConfig

Configuration for what triggers notifications

Enums

FieldEvent

Event emitted when field activity crosses a threshold

Traits

FieldObserver

Observer that receives field events

Type Aliases

TernarySignalDeprecated