James McClelland, Psychology Department, "Development and Disintegration of Conceptual Knowledge: A Parallel-Distributed Processing Approach"
ABSTRACT:
As a new member of the Stanford faculty I will take this opportunity to introduce my overall research program. After a brief overview of some of the topics we consider in my lab, I will focus the body of the talk on one recent project that is continuing in my laboratory.
This project centers on a model of human semantic cognition, based on the ideas of distributed representation and gradual incremental learning inherent in the Parallel-Distributed Processing (PDP) framework. The model addresses progressive differentiation of conceptual knowledge in child development and progressive disintegration of conceptual knowledge in semantic dementia, a rare condition affecting the temporal lobes.
I will also use the model to addresses phenomena that some have taken as supporting the idea that human semantic knowledge takes the form of naive, implicit domain theories, including category coherence effects, differential importance of different properties for different domains, and reorganization of conceptual knowledge in development. It suggests how domain specific constraints on the interpretation of new information may arise from prior experience, providing an alternative to nativist approaches to the origins of such constraints on cognition.