Connectionism and the Mind Parallel Processing, Dynamics, and Evolution in Networks

by Bechtel, William; Abrahamsen, Adele

• ISBN13: 9780631207139
• ISBN10: 0631207139
• Edition: 2nd
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2002-01-21
• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell

Summary

Connectionism and the Mind provides a clear and balanced introduction to connectionist networks and explores theoretical and philosophical implications. Much of this discussion from the first edition has been updated, and three new chapters have been added on the relation of connectionism to recent work on dynamical systems theory, artificial life, and cognitive neuroscience.Read two of the sample chapters on line:Connectionism and the Dynamical Approach to Cognition: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/bechtel.pdfNetworks, Robots, and Artificial Life: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/pdf/bechtel2.pdf

Author Biography

William Bechtel is Professor of Philosophy at the University of California, San Diego and Editor of the journal Philosophical Psychology. His publications include Philosophy of Mind (1988), Philosophy of Science (1988), and Discovering Complexity (1993, with Robert Richardson), A Companion to Cognitive Science (with George Graham, Blackwell 1999), Philosophy and the Neurosciences (with Pete Mandik, Jennefer Mundale and Robert S. Stufflebeam, Blackwell 2001).

Adele Abrahamsen is Associate Professor of Psychology and Undergraduate Director of the Philosophy-Neuroscience-Psychology and Linguistics Programs at Washington University in St. Louis. She is the author of Child Language (1977).

Table of Contents

Preface

Networks versus Symbol Systems: Two Approaches to Modeling Cognition:.A Revolution in the Making?

Forerunners of Connectionism: Pandemonium and Perceptrons

The Allure of Symbol Manipulation

The Disappearance and Re-emergence of Network Models

New Alliances and Unfinished Business

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Connectionist Architectures:.The Flavor of Connectionist Processing: A Simulation of Memory Retrieval

The Design Features of a Connectionist Architecture

The Allure of the Connectionist Approach

Challenges Facing Connectionist Networks

Summary

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Learning:.Traditional and Contemporary Approaches to Learning

Connectionist Models of Learning

Some Issues Regarding Learning

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Pattern Recognition and Cognition:.Networks as Pattern Recognition Devices

Extending Pattern Recognition to Higher Cognition

Logical Inference as Pattern Recognition

Beyond Pattern Recognition

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Are Rules Required to Process Representations?:.Is Language Use Governed by Rules?

Rumelhart and McClelland's Model of Past-Tense Acquisition

Pinker and Prince's Arguments for Rules

Accounting for the U-Shaped Learning Function

Conclusion

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Are Syntactically Structured Representations Needed?:.Fodor and Pylyshyn's Critique: The Need for Symbolic Representations with Constituent Structure

First Connectionist Response: Explicitly Implementing Rules and Representations

Second Connectionist Response: Implementing Functionally Compositional Representations

Third Connectionist Response: Employing Procedural Knowledge with External Symbols

Using External Symbols to Provide Exact Symbol Processing

Clarifying the Standard: Systematicity and Degree of Generalizability

Conclusion

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Simulating Higher Cognition: A Modular Architecture for Processing Scripts:.Overview of Scripts

Overview of Miikkulainen's DISCERN System

Modular Connectionist Architectures

FGREP: An Architecture that Allows the System to Devise Its Own Representations

A Self-organizing Lexicon using Kohonen Feature Maps

Encoding and Decoding Stories as Scripts

A Connectionist Episodic Memory

Performance: Paraphrasing Stories and Answering Questions

Evaluating DISCERN

Paths Beyond the First Decade of Connectionism

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Connectionism and the Dynamical Approach to Cognition:.Are We on the Road to a Dynamical Revolution?

Basic Concepts of DST: The Geometry of Change

Using Dynamical Systems Tools to Analyze Networks

Putting Chaos to Work in Networks

Is Dynamicism a Competitor to Connectionism?

Is Dynamicism Complementary to Connectionism?

Conclusion

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Networks, Robots, and Artificial Life:.Robots and the Genetic Algorithm

Cellular Automata and the Synthetic Strategy

Evolution and Learning in Food-seekers

Evolution and Development in Khepera

The Computational Neuroethology of Robots

When Philosophers Encounter Robots

Conclusion

Sources and Suggested Readings

Connectionism and the Brain:.Connectionism Meets Cognitive Neuroscience

Four Connectionist Models of Brain Processes

The Neural Implausibility of Many Connectionist Models

Wither Connectionism?

Notes

Sources and Suggested Readings

Notation

Glossary

Bibliography

Name Index

Subject Index

Table of Contents provided by Publisher. All Rights Reserved.