CogSci Meeting

[Jim Hendler]

I can't really let Don Norman's message go by without feeling compelled
to add my own two cents -- I agree with Don that it is important that
connectionists attend the Cog Swci meeting -- it is an important meeting
for new researcj in cognitive science.  However, as far as I'm concerned,
those going simply to 'spread the gospel' of connectionism, rather than
to also find out what is happening elsewhere are (well let's be polite)
perhaps not availing themselves of the potential to learn important 
information.  I think some very BAD cognitive results have come from
people in this camp (and I do consider myself a connectionist to some
degree, although somewhat reluctantly) because they have simply ignored
a large body of research which discusses important cognitive phenomena
which our models MUST account for someday (you cannot ignore experimental
results without making a compelling argument as to why they are wrong).
There have also been some very important results which have derived from
connectionist modeling (Rumelhart's work, Norman's own recent work, etc.) 
and the Cognitive Science community has been forced to pay attention. - because
the people doing this work did NOT ignore the data.
 So, just to summarize, I think people should plan on attending, but not
simply to convince us east-poler's that connectionism is the word of God,
but rather to learn for yourselves where the greatest challenges to 
connectionists lie.
 cheers
 Jim H.