Parallel Distributed Processing, Volume 1: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition: Foundations / Edition 1

by David E. Rumelhart, James L. Mcclelland, PDP Research Group

Overview

What makes people smarter than computers? These volumes by a pioneering neurocomputing group suggest that the answer lies in the massively parallel architecture of the human mind. They describe a new theory of cognition called connectionism that is challenging the idea of symbolic computation that has traditionally been at the center of debate in theoretical discussions about the mind.

The authors' theory assumes the mind is composed of a great number of elementary units connected in a neural network. Mental processes are interactions between these units which excite and inhibit each other in parallel rather than sequential operations. In this context, knowledge can no longer be thought of as stored in localized structures; instead, it consists of the connections between pairs of units that are distributed throughout the network.

Volume 1 lays the foundations of this exciting theory of parallel distributed processing, while Volume 2 applies it to a number of specific issues in cognitive science and neuroscience, with chapters describing models of aspects of perception, memory, language, and thought.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780262680530
Publisher:	MIT Press
Publication date:	07/29/1987
Series:	Bradford Books Series , #1
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	567
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.30(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

David E. Rumelhart (1942-2011) served as Professor of Psychology at the University of California, San Diego and Stanford University. With James McClelland, he was awarded the 2002 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology for his work in the field of cognitive neuroscience on a cognitive framework called parallel distributed processing and the concept of connectionism.

James L. McClelland is Professor of Psychology and Director of the Center for Mind, Brain, and Computation at Stanford University. He is the coauthor of Parallel Distributed Processing (1986) and Semantic Cognition (2004), both published by the MIT Press. With David E. Rumelhart, he was awarded the 2002 University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Psychology for his work in the field of cognitive neuroscience on a cognitive framework called parallel distributed processing and the concept of connectionism.

Jerome A. Feldman is Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and former Director of the Cognitive Science Program at the University of California, Berkeley, and a Research Scientist at the International Computer Science Institute.

Table of Contents

Preface
Acknowledgments
Addresses of the PDP Research Group
I THE PDP PERSPECTIVE
1 The Appeal of Parallel Distributed Processing
J.L. McClelland, D.E. Rumelhart, and G.E. Hinton
2 A General Framework for Parallel Distributed
Processing
D.E. Rumelhart, G.E. Hinton, and J.L. McClelland
3 Distributed Representations
G.E. Hinton, J.L. McClelland, and D.E. Rumelhart
4 PDP Models and General Issues in Cognitive Science
D.E. Rumelhart and J.L. McClelland
II BASIC MECHANISMS
5 Feature Discovery by Competitive Learning
D.E. Rumelhart and D. Zipser
6 Information Processing in Dynamical Systems:
Foundations of Harmony Theory
P. Smolensky
7 Learning and Relearning in Holtzmann Machines
G.E. Hinton and T.J. Sejnowski
8 Learning Internal Representations by Error
Propagation
D.E. Rumelhart, G.E. Hinton, and R.J. Williams
III FORMAL ANALYSIS
9 An Introduction to Linear Algebra in Parallel
Distributed Processing
M.I. Jordan
10 The Logic of Activation Functions
R.J. Williams
11 An Analysis of the Delta Rule and the Learning of
Statistical Associations
G.O. Stone
12 Resource Requirements of Standard and Programmable
Nets
J.L. McClelland
13 P3: A Parallel Network Simulating System
D. Zipser and D.E. Rabin
References
IndeX

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"Rumelhart and McClelland propose that what is stored in memory is not specific facts or events, but rather the relationships between the various aspects of those facts or events as they are encoded in groupings of neuronal cells or patterns of cell activity." Daniel Coleman, The NewYork Times

The New York Times - Daniel Coleman

Rumelhart and McClelland propose that what is stored in memory is not specific facts or events, but rather the relationships between the various aspects of those facts or events as they are encoded in groupings of neuronal cells or patterns of cell activity.

Editorial Reviews

The most intense, most effective and most mind-stretching view of neurocomputing origins, theories and concerns to yet reach print.—Intelligence—

From the Publisher

The most intense, most effective and most mind-stretching view of neurocomputing origins, theories and concerns to yet reach print.

Intelligence