Connectionists: 1976 - 2026: Adaptive Resonance Theory is 50 years old!

[Grossberg, Stephen]

Dear Connectionists colleagues,

I introduced Adaptive Resonance Theory, or ART, in 1976, 50 years ago!

ART is currently the most advanced cognitive and neural theory of how our brains learn to attend, recognize, and predict objects and events in a changing world that is filled with unexpected events, and does so without experiencing catastrophic forgetting.

These properties solve what I call the STABILITY-PLASTICITY DILEMMA:
Fast learning (plasticity) combined with self-stabilizing memory (stability).

When bottom-up adaptive excitatory signals from feature patterns to recognition categories, and top-down adaptive excitatory signals from active categories to their feature patterns match well enough with bottom-up input patterns, excitatory feedback between categories and features SYNCHRONIZES, AMPLIFIES, and PROLONGS system response.

Such a FEATURE-CATEGORY RESONANCE drives LEARNING in the adaptive weights of bottom-up and top-down signals.

I therefore call it an ADAPTIVE Resonance.

All the foundational hypotheses of ART have been supported by subsequent psychological and neurobiological experiments.

ART has also provided explanations of hundreds of additional experiments.

My THOUGHT EXPERIMENT published in 1980 in Psychological Review shows that ART systems are the UNIQUE solution of the problem of how ANY system can AUTONOMOUSLY learn to CORRECT PREDICTIVE ERRORS in a changing world.

The hypotheses that the thought experiment uses to derive ART do not mention mind or brain.

ART is thus the UNIVERSAL class of solutions that solves the AUTONOMOUS learning and prediction problem.

That is why ART principles and mechanisms are found in cellular systems throughout phylogeny, not just brains.

It is also why ART has been used to solve large-scale applications to engineering, technology, and AI.

ART also helps to explain HOW, WHERE in our brains, and WHY evolution has enabled us to CONSCIOUSLY SEE, HEAR, FEEL, AND KNOW about objects and events in our world, and how conscious states enable PLANS and ACTIONS to realize VALUED GOALS.

ART mechanisms are realized in the CANONICAL LAMINAR CIRCUIT whose variations throughout the cerebral cortex carry out the main brain processes that support human intelligence.

If ART processes become imbalanced in specific ways, then BEHAVIORAL SYMPTOMS OF MENTAL DISORDERS emerge, including Alzheimer's disease, autism, Fragile X syndrome, medial temporal amnesia, schizophrenia, ADHD, PTSD, auditory and visual neglect and agnosia, and disorders of slow-wave sleep.

For details, see archival articles at sites.bu.edu/steveg, as well as my books:

CONSCIOUS MIND, RESONANT BRAIN: HOW EACH BRAIN MAKES A MIND
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0190070552?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback

and

YOUR CREATIVE BRAIN AND AI:
How We Learn and Consciously Experience
ART, MUSIC, and MEANING
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0198965370?lv=shuf&channelId=500&plpRedirect=mhFallback



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