The Dynamics of Concepts A Connectionist Model [Paperback]

This book offers a model for concepts and their dynamics. Abasic assumptionis that concepts are composed of specifiedcomponents, which are representedby large binary patternswhose psychological meaning is governed by the interactionbetween conceptual modules and other functional modules. Arecurrent connectionist model is developed in which someinputs are attracted faster than others by an attractor,where convergence times can beinterpreted as decisionlatencies. The learning rule proposed is extracted frompsychological experiments. The rule has the property thatthat whena context becomes more familiar, the associationsbetween the concepts of the context spontaneously evolvefrom loose associations to a more taxonomicorganization.Semantic and pre-semantic representations.- Demarcation of a module for non-verbal representations.- Feature packages and the representation of function.- The internal structure of categories.- A connectionist model and a proposal for a learning rule.- Prototypes and more general typicality-effects.- The influence of contexts on typicalities.- The basic level of taxonomic organization.- Conceptual Organization and Its Development.- The empirical psychology of concept development.- General discussion.Springer Book Archives