Tech Report "Towards a Cognitive Connectionism" available

[Bob French]

The following Tech Report is now available.  It is scheduled to appear
in the January 1990 issue of AI and Society:

 
 ACTIVE SYMBOLS AND INTERNAL MODELS: TOWARDS A COGNITIVE CONNECTIONISM
                                by
          Stephen Kaplan, Mark Weaver and Robert M. French
 
 
 In this paper, we examine some recent criticisms of connectionist models. In 
 the first section, we address the argument that connectionist models are 
 fundamentally behaviorist in nature and, therefore, incapable of genuine 
 cognition.  We conclude that these criticisms are indeed valid, but apply 
 only to the currently popular class of feed-forward connectionist networks. 
 
 To have any hope of avoiding the charge of behaviorism, and ultimately to
 support full cognition, connectionist architectures must be capable of
 producing persistent internal states.  We discuss the crucial notion 
 of "active symbols" -- semi-autonomous representations -- as a basis for 
 such a cognitive connectionist architecture.  Active symbols arise, we 
 argue, out of recurrent circuits, the connectionist implementation of 
 Hebbian cell assemblies.
 
 Recurrent architectures have become more prominent in the past year.
 However, most researchers investigating recurrent architectures seem
 to view recurrent circuitry merely as an "improved back-prop" for handling
 time-sequencing.  Our view, that the recurrent circuit must be the 
 fundamental building block of any cognitive connectionist architecture, 
 represents a philosophical departure from current thought.
 
 In the final section we speculate on the potentials and limits of an
 associationist architecture.  In particular, we examine how the this type
 of architecture might be able to produce the structure that is evident in
 human cognitive capacities, and thus answer the criticisms of Fodor and
 Pylyshyn.
 
 This paper is scheduled to appear in AI and Society in January 1990.
 
 To obtain a copy of this paper, send e-mail to french at cogsci.indiana.edu
 or write to:
 
               Bob French
               Center for Research on Concepts and Cognition
               Indiana University
               510 North Fess
               Bloomington, Indiana 47401