Papers available

[Ron Sun]

Papers available,  in both PS and PDF formats:


-----------------------------------------------------------------
TITLE
Symbol Grounding: A New Look At An Old Idea

by Ron Sun

Appeared in:  Philosophical Psychology, Vol.13, No.2, pp.149-172.  2000.

http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/sun.PP00.ps
http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/sun.PP00.pdf



ABSTRACT

Symbols should be grounded, as has been argued before.
But we insist that they should be grounded not only in subsymbolic 
activities, but also in the interaction between the agent and the 
world.  The point is that concepts are not formed
in isolation (from the world), in abstraction, or ``objectively".
They are formed in relation to the experience of agents,
through their perceptual/motor apparatuses, in their world and
linked to their goals and actions.  In this paper, we will 
take a detailed look at this relatively old issue,
using a new perspective, aided by our work  of computational 
cognitive model development.  






---------------------------------------------------------------
TITLE:
Cognitive Science Meets Multi-Agent Systems: A Prolegomenon

by Ron Sun


To appear in: Philosophical Psychology, Vol.14, No.1, pp.5-28. 2001.

http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/sun.PP01.ps
http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/sun.PP01.pdf



ABSTRACT

In the current research on multi-agent systems (MAS), many theoretical issues
related to sociocultural processes have been touched upon. These issues are in 
fact intellectually profound and should prove to be significant for MAS.
Moreover, these issues should have equally significant impact on
cognitive science, if we ever try to understand cognition in the broad 
context of sociocultural environments in which cognitive agents exist.
Furthermore, cognitive models as studied in cognitive science can
help us in a substantial way to better probe multi-agent issues,
by taking into account essential characteristics of cognitive agents
and their various capacities.  In this paper,  we systematically examine the 
interplay among social sciences, MAS, and cognitive science.  We try to justify
an integrated approach for MAS that incorporates different perspectives.
We show how a new cognitive model {Clarion} can embody such an integrated
approach through a combination of autonomous learning and assimilation.

---------------------------------------------------------------


TITLE
Accounting for the Computational Basis of Consciousness: A Connectionist Approach

by Ron Sun


Appeared in: Consciousness and Cognition, Vol.8, pp.529-565. December, 1999.

http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/sun.CC99.ps
http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/sun.CC99.pdf



ABSTRACT

This paper argues for an explanation of the mechanistic (computational)
basis of consciousness that is based on the distinction between localist 
(symbolic) representation and distributed representation, 
the ideas of which have been put forth in the connectionist literature.  
A model is developed to substantiate and test this approach.  
The paper also explores the issue of the functional roles of 
consciousness, in relation to the proposed mechanistic explanation of 
consciousness.  The model,  embodying the representational difference, is able
to account for the functional role of consciousness, in the form of the 
synergy between the conscious and the unconscious.  The fit between the 
model and various cognitive phenomena and data (documented in
the psychological literatures) is discussed to accentuate the plausibility
of the model and its explanation of consciousness.
Comparisons with existing models of consciousness are made in the end.



-------------------------------------------------------------------
here is a related paper describing the details of the model:



>>From Implicit Skills to Explicit Knowledge: A Bottom-Up Model of Skill Learning

Ron Sun
Edward Merrill
Todd Peterson

To appear in: Cognitive Science.

http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/sun.CS99.ps
http://www.cecs.missouri.edu/~rsun/sun.CS99.pdf



ABSTRACT
This paper  presents a skill learning model {\sc Clarion}.  Different from
existing models of mostly high-level skill learning that use a top-down
approach (that is, turning declarative knowledge into procedural knowledge
through practice), we adopt a bottom-up approach toward low-level skill
learning, where procedural knowledge develops first and declarative knowledge 
develops later.  Our model is formed by integrating connectionist, 
reinforcement, and symbolic learning methods to perform on-line reactive 
learning.  It adopts a two-level dual-representation framework (Sun 1995), 
with a combination of localist and distributed representation.  We compare 
the model with human data in a minefield navigation task, demonstrating some  
match between the model and human data in several respects.