cognition and biology

[Hideyuki Cateau]

Jay McClelland writes:

>Sometimes very
>abstract and general features that connectionist systems share with
>other systems are doing the work; other times it is going to turn out
>to be specific features not shared by a wide range of abstract models.
>The power law appears to be a case of the former, since it has
>probably been accounted for by more psychological models than any
>other phenomenon.

   I have two things which I would like to say in relation to his comments.
First, since I am not a psychologist, I have asked many psychologists about 
the power law which I am interested in.   Then I knew that the power laws 
are frequently found in psychological experiments such as Stevens' law. 
I also knew there are various psychological models which derive some of 
the power laws.  But up to now, I have never found in  literatures or heard 
from psychologist, that there is a non-neural-network-based psychological 
model which explains exactly the same experiment in question.  If anyone 
know such work, please tell it to me. It is very intriguing to me to examine 
which model is better.

   Second,  I am actually a physisist majoring in an elementary particle 
physics. Particle physisists generally believe that all the phenomena occuring 
in this world must be explained, after all,  from  fundamental laws of the 
elemenary particles, because this world consists of the elementary particles.  
In just the same way, I believe that every intellectual phenomenum of our 
brain is derived from th activities of the neurons of which our brain consists.
So I have a tendency to prefer the neural-network-based model to other 
psychological models.   This is the reason why I think my work  is meaningful 
although there might be other psychological models which also explain the 
the experiment in question. 

     Of course it is wrong to say that one way of thinking is correct  
and another way is incorrect.   Both non-neural-network-based way and neural- 
network-based way will be useful for our understanding of nature.   In 
a community of particle physics, the two different stand points are clearly 
separated.  Those who on the former stand point are called phenomenologists, 
while those who on the latter stand point are called theoretical theorists.  
The former people are trying to find a simple law  which reproduces 
experimental facts based on some assumptipons, but not so serious about why 
such law holds.   The latter people are trying to derive the fundamental 
laws of physics from the first principle, but they frequently fall into the 
study of the toy models which are only of academic interest. Anyway, both ways 
of thinking is necessary for understanding of nature.


Hideyuki Cateau