harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu (Stevan Harnad) (01/04/89)
Below is the abstract of a forthcoming target article to appear in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal that provides Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be current BBS Associates or nominated by a current BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator on this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please send email to: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu or write to: BBS, 20 Nassau Street, #240, Princeton NJ 08542 [tel: 609-921-7771] ____________________________________________________________________ THE CONNECTIONIST CONSTRUCTION OF CONCEPTS Adrian Cussins, New College, Oxford Computational modelling of cognition depends on an underlying theory of representation. Classical cognitive science has exploited the syntax/semantics theory of representation derived from formal logic. As a consequence, the kind of psychological explanation supported by classical cognitive science is "conceptualist": psychological phenomena are modelled in terms of relations between concepts and between the sensors/effectors and concepts. This kind of explanation is inappropriate according to Smolensky's "Proper Treatment of Connectionism" [BBS 11(1) 1988]. Is there an alternative theory of representation that retains the advantages of classical theory but does not force psychological explanation into the conceptualist mold? I outline such an alternative by introducing an experience-based notion of nonconceptual content and by showing how a complex construction out of nonconceptual content can satisfy classical constraints on cognition. Cognitive structure is not interconceptual but intraconceptual. The theory of representational structure within concepts allows psychological phenomena to be explained as the progressive emergence of objectivity. This can be modelled computationally by transformations of nonconceptual content which progressively decrease its perspective-dependence through the formation of a cognitive map. -- Stevan Harnad INTERNET: harnad@confidence.princeton.edu harnad@princeton.edu srh@flash.bellcore.com harnad@elbereth.rutgers.edu harnad@princeton.uucp BITNET: harnad@pucc.bitnet CSNET: harnad%princeton.edu@relay.cs.net (609)-921-7771