Technical Report

[ANDERSON%BROWNCOG.BITNET@mitvma.mit.edu]

A technical report is available:


    "Why, having so many neurons, do we have so few thoughts?"


                    Technical Report 90-1
  Brown University Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences

James A. Anderson
Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences
Box 1978
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912

This is a chapter to appear in: Relating Theory and Data
Edited by W.E. Hockley and S. Lewandowsky, Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum (LEA)


                             Abstract

Experimental cognitive psychology often involves recording two quite
distinct kinds of data.  The first is whether the computation itself is done
correctly or incorrectly and the second records how long it took to
get an answer.   Neural network computations are often loosely described
as being `brain-like.'  This suggests that it might be possible to model
experimental reaction time data simply by seeing how long it takes for the
network to generate the answer and error data by looking at the computed
results in the same system.  Simple feedforward nets usually do not give
direct computation time data. However, network models realizing dynamical
systems can give `reaction times' directly by noting the time required
for the network computation to be completed.  In some cases genuine
random processes are necessary to generate differing reaction times,
but in other cases deterministic, noise free systems can also give
distributions of reaction times.


This report can be obtained by sending an email message to:

              LI700008 at brownvm.BITNET
                        or
              anderson at browncog.BITNET

and asking for Cognitive Science Technical Report 90-1 on reaction
times, or by sending a note by regular mail to the address above.