gray@hplb.CSNET.UUCP (06/11/87)
In article <622@unicus.UUCP>, craig@unicus.UUCP (Craig D. Hubley) writes: > I was semi-surprised in recent months to discover that cognitive psychology, > far from developing a bold new metaphor for human thinking, has (to a degree) > copied at least one metaphor from third-generation computer science. Psychology freely borrows *any* models that will help it get a grip on characterising and explaining the phenomena of cognition. Over the years, analogies of the workings of the mind have been constructed from : windmills, hydraulic systems, telephone switching exchanges and latterly, the computer (or more properly, information-processing devices). The one thing that all these analogies have in common is that they draw on the technological state-of-the-art of the time. (The "internal combustion engine" analogy is a new one to me). David Longerbeam's comment about the requirement for empiricism is valid in this instance. Donald Hebb assumed a separation of STM and LTM in a 1949 paper (and that's going back quite some time, only a year after Shockley's invention of the transistor). It is unlikely that the computer-architecture construct of "archived storage" played any part in Hebb's dichotomising of human memory. It appears that this is one example of a model developed within cognitive psychology, independently of developments in computer architecture. (I'm not well-versed in comp.sci. history - but it seems reasonable to conjecture that Hebb was unaware of the notions of "archived storage" when he was developing his dichotomisation). > This description of the human memory system, though cloaked in vaguer terms, > corresponds more or less one-to-one with the traditional computer > architecture we all know and love ... > > - senses have "iconic" and "echo" memories analogous to buffers. > - short term memory holds information that is organized for quick > processing, much like main storage in a computing system. > - long term memory holds information in a sort of semantic > association network where large related pieces of information > reside, similar to backing or "archived" computing storage. I think that this is somewhat of an over-simplification. There are quite a few phenomena arising from studies of "iconic", "echoic", "short-term" and "long-term" areas of human memory which do not fit so tamely into a computer-architecture model. Thus, there has *not* been uncritical acceptance of either that the "iconic" and "echoic" aspects of memory are passive or that memory can be simply dichotomised into into STM and LTM sections. In the absence of anything better, the analogies will do for now, but there are too many phenomena which don't fit in to these analogies for them to anything but convenient for the moment. One of the disciplinary traits actively promoted in psychology (be it cognitive, social, experimental, etc.) is a high degree of circumspection. (There is a tradition that one never sees a one-armed psychologist - "on one hand .... and on the other ... "). Thus models and analogies *can* be freely borrowed from other areas and exploited for what they offer, for as long as they exhibit some level of descriptive utility. It is instructive to note that contemporary cognitive psychologists no longer use windmills or telephone exchanges (or even the internal combustion engine) as analogies of the workings of the mind. These particular analogies have outlived their usefulness and have been discarded (I hope!). Graham Higgins || The opinions expressed above Hewlett-Packard Labs || are not to be contrued as the Bristol, U.K. || opinions, stated or otherwise, gjh@hplb.csnet +44 272 799910 xt 4060 || of Hewlett-Packard
NYSTERN@WEIZMANN.BITNET.UUCP (06/29/87)
I have two comments to say;
a) As far as I understand from the article, Otto Selz has DIED
in 1943 at Auschwits (If one takes into account what Auschwits was
that period it seems quite logical) thus he couldn't publish his work in
1943 ... If one remembers what were the types of people who died in
Auschwits (I.E Jews) and if one takes into account that they expelled from
The Universities and Research Institutions from about 1933 (Hitlers
election as Germany's prime minister) then the only logical concultion
is that He didn't publish his theory after 1933 (since he was banned)
1943-1933=10 years (woow , I made it ...) which means he published his
theory before Turing or Shannon published theirs ...
WWII was probably the main reason for the lack of knowledge about his work.
(Remember that the war was ended 2 years later and the world had enough on
his mind than to remember Selz's theory ...)
BTW The commentation above isn't based on facts since I know very little
about his life and death (I may be wrong and will found out that he died
As a top Nazy SS officer due to cancer ... but that possiblity seems
redundant to me)
b) As far as I know AI is based on Mathematics ans Biology.
Both of those Sciences and many of the disciplines adopted by AI
scientists were formed a long time ago even without being influenced by
AI/computers (in matter of fact up until now the fields of Biology
and Computers wasn't combined together when matters of theory comes
only as a tool (calculation programs and DNA decoding algorythms)
Well to sum up my point I feel that the computer-science field will
benefit more from the work of hopfield then any theoretical axiome ...
The scince world has become too specific while I believe that combining all
forces together instead of working in paralel on the same topic would be more
fruitful for the science world and for the world (With one objection that
one field should not impose his theory on the other let, 1000 flowers grow
together, but TOGETHER). There is a Master grad. in weizmann who has done
his thesis in the vision field in the Department of Applied Math, His
'problem' is that his thesis relates to many fields (physics,neuro biology)
and not only to Applied Math moreover He has proved emphirically and cited
Famous researchers in this field that Math is redundant in this specific field.
Ofcourse no one like his thesis in the Math Department ... As far as I know
He will have his Master (got above 80 in the oral test) BUT how much will he
get about hsi work ? no one knows. His work is great but it doesn't fit into
the cateogries of our formal science. There's no (yet) a field named
Applied neuro-math or Applied psycho-physics or even Applied neuro-physics.
I've brought this story up to show 1) The situation in the science world
nowadays 2) to emphesize the trends of science as I see them 3) to back
up the notion that Applied Math and AI would benifit alot by examening works
of other science fields.
I believe that that's all.