ORCID Profile
0000-0001-6593-4750
Current Organisation
University of Adelaide
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Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2002
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Date: 2017
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 02-1999
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X9900179X
Abstract: When cognitive scientists apply computational theory to the problem of phenomenal consciousness, as many have been doing recently, there are two fundamentally distinct approaches available. Consciousness is to be explained either in terms of the nature of the representational vehicles the brain deploys or in terms of the computational processes defined over these vehicles. We call versions of these two approaches vehicle and process theories of consciousness, respectively. However, although there may be space for vehicle theories of consciousness in cognitive science, they are relatively rare. This is because of the influence exerted, on the one hand, by a large body of research that purports to show that the explicit representation of information in the brain and conscious experience are dissociable, and on the other, by the classical computational theory of mind--the theory that takes human cognition to be a species of symbol manipulation. Two recent developments in cognitive science combine to suggest that a reappraisal of this situation is in order. First, a number of theorists have recently been highly critical of the experimental methodologies used in the dissociation studies--so critical, in fact, that it is no longer reasonable to assume that the dissociability of conscious experience and explicit representation has been adequately demonstrated. Second, classicism, as a theory of human cognition, is no longer as dominant in cognitive science as it once was. It now has a lively competitor in the form of connectionism and connectionism, unlike classicism, does have the computational resources to support a robust vehicle theory of consciousness. In this target article we develop and defend this connectionist vehicle theory of consciousness. It takes the form of the following simple empirical hypothesis: phenomenal experience consists of the explicit representation of information in neurally realized parallel distributed processing (PDP) networks. This hypothesis leads us to reassess some common wisdom about consciousness, but, we argue, in fruitful and ultimately plausible ways.
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 04-2006
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 15-12-2006
DOI: 10.1007/S10339-005-0017-7
Abstract: Although connectionism is advocated by its proponents as an alternative to the classical computational theory of mind, doubts persist about its computational credentials. Our aim is to dispel these doubts by explaining how connectionist networks compute. We first develop a generic account of computation-no easy task, because computation, like almost every other foundational concept in cognitive science, has resisted canonical definition. We opt for a characterisation that does justice to the explanatory role of computation in cognitive science. Next we examine what might be regarded as the "conventional" account of connectionist computation. We show why this account is inadequate and hence fosters the suspicion that connectionist networks are not genuinely computational. Lastly, we turn to the principal task of the paper: the development of a more robust portrait of connectionist computation. The basis of this portrait is an explanation of the representational capacities of connection weights, supported by an analysis of the weight configurations of a series of simulated neural networks.
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 18-09-2009
DOI: 10.1007/S10339-008-0227-X
Abstract: Reformers urge that representation no longer earns its explanatory keep in cognitive science, and that it is time to discard this troublesome concept. In contrast, we hold that without representation cognitive science is utterly bereft of tools for explaining natural intelligence. In order to defend the latter position, we focus on the explanatory role of representation in computation. We examine how the methods of digital and analog computation are used to model a relatively simple target system, and show that representation plays an in-eliminable explanatory role in both cases. We conclude that, to the extent that biologic systems engage in computation, representation is destined to play an explanatory role in cognitive science.
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-1998
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 06-2000
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 10-1999
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X99482184
Abstract: Dienes & Perner offer us a theory of explicit and implicit knowledge that promises to systematise a large and erse body of research in cognitive psychology. Their advertised strategy is to unpack this distinction in terms of explicit and implicit representation. But when one digs deeper one finds the “Higher-Order Thought” theory of consciousness doing much of the work. This reduces both the plausibility and usefulness of their account. We think their strategy is broadly correct, but that consensus on the explicit/implicit knowledge distinction is still a fair way off.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 12-1999
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X99452215
Abstract: In restricting his analysis to the causal relations of functionalism, on the one hand, and the neurophysiological realizers of biology, on the other, Palmer has overlooked an alternative conception of the relationship between color experience and the brain – one that liberalizes the relation between mental phenomena and their physical implementation, without generating functionalism's counter-intuitive consequences. In this commentary we rely on Palmer's earlier work (especially from 1978) to tease out this alternative.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 08-2001
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X01560082
Abstract: Kubovy and Epstein distinguish between systems that follow rules, and those that merely instantiate them. They regard compliance with the principles of kinematic geometry in apparent motion as a case of instantiation. There is, however, some reason to believe that the human visual system internalizes the principles of kinematic geometry, even if it does not explicitly represent them. We offer functional resemblance as a criterion for internal representation. [Kubovy & Epstein]
Publisher: The MIT Press
Date: 23-10-2015
Publisher: Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Date: 10-07-2015
Publisher: Elsevier BV
Date: 07-2002
Publisher: Informa UK Limited
Date: 09-1997
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 06-2003
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X02410060
Abstract: We are sympathetic with the broad aims of Perruchet & Vinter's “mentalistic” framework. But it is implausible to claim, as they do, that human cognition can be understood without recourse to unconsciously represented information. In our view, this strategy forsakes the only available mechanistic understanding of intelligent behaviour. Our purpose here is to plot a course midway between the classical unconscious and Perruchet & Vinter's own noncomputational associationism.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 10-2001
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X0149011X
Abstract: O'Regan & Noë (O& N) fail to address adequately the two most historically important reasons for seeking to explain visual experience in terms of internal representations. They are silent about the apparently inferential nature of perception, and mistaken about the significance of the phenomenology accompanying dreams, hallucinations, and mental imagery.
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 04-2004
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Date: 07-08-2003
Publisher: Cambridge University Press (CUP)
Date: 12-2002
DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X02440125
Abstract: Carruthers presents evidence concerning the cross-modular integration of information in human subjects which appears to support the “cognitive conception of language.” According to this conception, language is not just a means of communication, but also a representational medium of thought. However, Carruthers overlooks the possibility that language, in both its communicative and cognitive roles, is a nonrepresentational system of conventional signals – that words are not a medium we think in, but a tool we think with. The evidence he cites is equivocal when it comes to choosing between the cognitive conception and this radical communicative conception of language.
Publisher: Macquarie Centre for Cognitive Science
Date: 2010
DOI: 10.5096/ASCS200941
Publisher: Elsevier
Date: 2004
Start Date: 2008
End Date: 2010
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded ActivityStart Date: 2005
End Date: 2006
Funder: Australian Research Council
View Funded Activity