Computation, Cognition, and Pylyshyn


Book Description

Zenon Pylyshyn is a towering figure in cognitive science; his book "Computation and Cognition" (MIT Press, 1984) is a foundational presentation of the relationship between cognition and computation. His recent work on vision and its preconceptual mechanism has been influential and controversial. In this book, leading cognitive scientists address major topics in Pylyshyn's work and discuss his contributions to the cognitive sciences. Contributors discuss vision, considering such topics as multiple-object tracking, action, molecular and cellular cognition, and inhibition of return; and foundational issues, including connectionism, modularity, the evolution of the perception of number, computation, cognitive architecture, location, and visual sensory representations of objects.




Computation and Cognition


Book Description

The question, "What is Cognitive Science?" is often asked but seldom answered to anyone's satisfaction. Until now, most of the answers have come from the new breed of philosophers of mind. This book, however, is written by a distinguished psychologist and computer scientist who is well-known for his work on the conceptual foundations of cognitive science, and especially for his research on mental imagery, representation, and perception. In Computation and Cognition, Pylyshyn argues that computation must not be viewed as just a convenient metaphor for mental activity, but as a literal empirical hypothesis. Such a view must face a number of serious challenges. For example, it must address the question of "strong equivalents" of processes, and must empirically distinguish between phenomena which reveal what knowledge the organism has, phenomena which reveal properties of the biologically determined "functional architecture" of the mind. The principles and ideas Pylyshyn develops are applied to a number of contentious areas of cognitive science, including theories of vision and mental imagery. In illuminating such timely theoretical problems, he draws on insights from psychology, theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, and psychology of mind. A Bradford Book




The Architecture of Cognition


Book Description

In 1988, Jerry Fodor and Zenon Pylyshyn challenged connectionist theorists to explain the systematicity of cognition. In a highly influential critical analysis of connectionism, they argued that connectionist explanations, at best, can only inform us about details of the neural substrate; explanations at the cognitive level must be classical insofar as adult human cognition is essentially systematic. This volume reassesses Fodor and Pylyshyn's 'systematicity challenge' for a post-connectionist era, covering the most important recent developments in the systematicity debate.




Man a Machine ; And, Man a Plant


Book Description

The first modern translation of the complete texts of La Mettrie's pioneering L'Homme machine and L'Homme plante, first published in 1747 and 1748, respectively, this volume also includes translations of the advertisement and dedication to L'Homme machine. Justin Leiber's introduction illuminates the radical thinking and advocacy of the passionate La Mettrie and provides cogent analysis of La Mettrie's relationship to such important philosophical figures as Descartes, Malebranche, and Locke, and of his lasting influence on the development of materialism, cognitive studies, linguistics, and other areas of intellectual inquiry.




Foundations of Cognitive Science


Book Description

What is cognitive science? The Foundations of Cognitive Science answers this question in a way that gives a feeling for the excitement, ferment, and accomplishments of this new field. It is the first broad treatment of cognitive science at an advanced level. Complete and authoritative, The Foundations of Cognitive Science covers the major architectures; provides background in philosophy linguistics, cognitive psychology, and neuroscience; and deals with methods for studying both brain and mind. All of the chapters have been written especially for the book by the leading scholars in the field. The foundations of cognitive science are developed in seven chapters covering computation, symbolic architectures, parallel distributed processing, grammars, semantics and formal logic, experimental cognitive science, and brain and cognition. These are then applied to the major cognitive domains of language acquisition, reading, discourse, mental models, categories and induction, problem solving, vision, visual attention, memory, action and motor control. The Foundations of Cognitive Science concludes with an assessment by a philosopher and a cognitive anthropologist. Michael I. Posner is Professor of Psychology at the University of Oregon. A Bradford Book. Contributors: Herbert A. SimonCraig A. KaplanZenon W. PylyshynAllen NewellJohn E. LairdPaul S. RosenbloomDavid E. RumelhartThomas WasowJon BarwiseJohn EtchemendyGordon H. BawerJohn P. ClapperTerrence J. SejnowskiPatricia Smith ChurchlandSteven PinkerAlexander PollatsekKeith RaynerBarbara J. GroszCandace L. SidnerMartha E. PollackP. N. Johnson-LairdEdward E. SmithKurt VanLehnEllen C. HildrethShimon UllmanAlan AllportDaniel L. SchacterDavid A. RosenbaumMichael I. JordanE. BizziF. A. Mussa IvaldiRoy D'AndradeGilbert Harman Contents: Computation, Symbolic Architectures, Parallel Distributed Processing, Grammars, Semantics and Formal Logic, Experimental Cognitive Science, Brain and Cognition, Language Acquisition, Reading, Discourse, Mental Models, Categories and Induction, Problem Solving, Vision, Visual Attention, Memory, Action, Motor Control, Culture, Philosophical Critique




Seeing and Visualizing


Book Description

How we see and how we visualize: why the scientific account differs from our experience.




Things and Places


Book Description

The author argues that the process of incrementally constructing perceptual representations, solving the binding problem (determining which properties go together), and, more generally, grounding perceptual representations in experience arise from the nonconceptual capacity to pick out and keep track of a small number of sensory individuals. He proposes a mechanism in early vision that allows us to select a limited number of sensory objects, to reidentify each of them under certain conditions as the same individual seen before, and to keep track of their enduring individuality despite radical changes in their properties--all without the machinery of concepts, identity, and tenses. This mechanism, which he calls FINSTs (for "Fingers of Instantiation"), is responsible for our capacity to individuate and track several independently moving sensory objects--an ability that we exercise every waking minute, and one that can be understood as fundamental to the way we see and understand the world and to our sense of space.




What is Cognitive Science


Book Description

Written by an assembly of leading researchers in the field, this volume provides an innovative and non-technical introduction to cognitive science, and the key issues that animate the field.




Mind Design II


Book Description

Mind design is the endeavor to understand mind (thinking, intellect) in terms of its design (how it is built, how it works). Unlike traditional empirical psychology, it is more oriented toward the "how" than the "what." An experiment in mind design is more likely to be an attempt to build something and make it work—as in artificial intelligence—than to observe or analyze what already exists. Mind design is psychology by reverse engineering. When Mind Design was first published in 1981, it became a classic in the then-nascent fields of cognitive science and AI. This second edition retains four landmark essays from the first, adding to them one earlier milestone (Turing's "Computing Machinery and Intelligence") and eleven more recent articles about connectionism, dynamical systems, and symbolic versus nonsymbolic models. The contributors are divided about evenly between philosophers and scientists. Yet all are "philosophical" in that they address fundamental issues and concepts; and all are "scientific" in that they are technically sophisticated and concerned with concrete empirical research. Contributors Rodney A. Brooks, Paul M. Churchland, Andy Clark, Daniel C. Dennett, Hubert L. Dreyfus, Jerry A. Fodor, Joseph Garon, John Haugeland, Marvin Minsky, Allen Newell, Zenon W. Pylyshyn, William Ramsey, Jay F. Rosenberg, David E. Rumelhart, John R. Searle, Herbert A. Simon, Paul Smolensky, Stephen Stich, A.M. Turing, Timothy van Gelder




Mind, Body, World


Book Description

Cognitive science arose in the 1950s when it became apparent that a number of disciplines, including psychology, computer science, linguistics, and philosophy, were fragmenting. Perhaps owing to the field's immediate origins in cybernetics, as well as to the foundational assumption that cognition is information processing, cognitive science initially seemed more unified than psychology. However, as a result of differing interpretations of the foundational assumption and dramatically divergent views of the meaning of the term information processing, three separate schools emerged: classical cognitive science, connectionist cognitive science, and embodied cognitive science. Examples, cases, and research findings taken from the wide range of phenomena studied by cognitive scientists effectively explain and explore the relationship among the three perspectives. Intended to introduce both graduate and senior undergraduate students to the foundations of cognitive science, Mind, Body, World addresses a number of questions currently being asked by those practicing in the field: What are the core assumptions of the three different schools? What are the relationships between these different sets of core assumptions? Is there only one cognitive science, or are there many different cognitive sciences? Giving the schools equal treatment and displaying a broad and deep understanding of the field, Dawson highlights the fundamental tensions and lines of fragmentation that exist among the schools and provides a refreshing and unifying framework for students of cognitive science.