PhD thesis ``Associative Computation''

[Andreas Wichert]

Dear Connectionists,

Remember, in August 1998 Dave Touretzky asked on the connectionistic e-mailing
list:  ``..I concluded that connectionist symbol processing had reached a
plateau...  No one is trying to build distributed connectionist reasoning
systems any more, like the connectionist production system I built with Geoff
Hinton...''

The PhD thesis ``Associative Computation'' tries to fill the explicatory gap...

Abstract

Currently neural networks are used in many different domains.  But are neural
networks also suitable for modeling problem solving, a domain which is
traditionally reserved for the symbolic approach?  This central question of
cognitive science is answered in this work.  It is affirmed by corresponding
neural network models.  The models have the same behavior as the symbolic
models.  However, also additional properties resulting from the distributed
representation emerge.  It is shown by comparison of those additional abilities
with the basic behavior of the model, that the additional properties lead to a
significant algorithmic improvement.  This is verified by statistical hypothesis
testing.  The associative computer, a neural model for a reaction system based
on the assembly theory, is introduced.  It is shown that planning can be
realized by a neural architecture that does not use symbolic representation.  A
crucial point is the description of states by pictures.  The human ability to
process images and understand w hat they mean in order to solve a problem holds
an important clue to how the human thought process works.  This clue is examined
by empirical experiments with the associative computer.  One general conclusion
from the experiments is the claim that it is possible to use systematically
associativestructures to perform reasoning by forming chains of associations.
In addition, beside symbolical problem solving, pictorial problem solving is
possible.


Available at:

1) web site, in gzipped postscript formatat:
   http://www.informatik.uni-ulm.de/ni/mitarbeiter/AWichert.html

2) anonymous ftp, in gzipped postscript format or gzipped pdf format:
   ftp.neuro.informatik.uni-ulm.de, directory /ni/wichert

3) web site University of Ulm library in pdf format:
h  ttp://vts.uni-ulm.de/query/longview.meta.asp?document_id=533

4) cdrom (pdf + ps) upon request


Andrzej

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Andrzej Wichert

Computer Science
Department of Neural Information Processing
University of Ulm
Oberer Eselsberg                            Tel.: +49 731 502 4257
89069 Ulm
Germany                                     Fax : +49 731 502 4156

http://www.informatik.uni-ulm.de/ni/mitarbeiter/AWichert.html
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