Connectionism in Context (Human-centred Systems)

Connectionism in Context aims to broaden and extend the debate concerning the significance of connectionist models. The volume collects together a variety of perspectives by experimental and developmental psychologists, philosophers and active AI researchers. These contributions relate con- nectionist ideas to historical psychlogical debates, e.g., over behaviourism and associationism, to develop- mental and philosophical issues. The result is a volume which addresses both familiar, but central, topics such as the relation between connectionism and classical AI, and less familiar, but highly challenging topics, such as connectionism,associationism and behaviourism, the dis- tinction between perception and cognition, the role of en- vironmental structure, and the potential value ofconnec- tionism as a means of "symbol grounding". The nine essays have been written with an interdisciplinary audience in mind and avoid both technical jargon and heavy mathematics.