The modern study of cognition finds itself with two widely endorsed but seemingly incongruous theoretical paradigms. The first of these, inspired by formal logic and the digital computer, sees reasoning in the principled manipulation of structured symbolic representations. The second, inspired by the physiology of the brain, sees reasoning as the behavior that emerges from the direct interactions found in large networks of simple processing components. Each paradigm has its own accomplishments, problems, methodology, proponents, and agenda.
This book records the thoughts of researchers -- from both computer science and philosophy -- on resolving the debate between the symbolic and connectionist paradigms. It addresses theoretical and methodological issues throughout, but at the same time exhibits the current attempts of practicing cognitive scientists to solve real problems.

The modern study of cognition finds itself with two widely endorsed but seemingly incongruous theoretical paradigms. The first of these, inspired by formal logic and the digital computer, sees reasoning in the principled manipulation of structured symbolic representations. The second, inspired by the physiology of the brain, sees reasoning as the behavior that emerges from the direct interactions found in large networks of simple processing components. Each paradigm has its own accomplishments, problems, methodology, proponents, and agenda.
This book records the thoughts of researchers -- from both computer science and philosophy -- on resolving the debate between the symbolic and connectionist paradigms. It addresses theoretical and methodological issues throughout, but at the same time exhibits the current attempts of practicing cognitive scientists to solve real problems.

The University of Kansas (KU) is a public research university and the largest university in the state of Kansas. Created by the staff of the KU libraries, KU ScholarWorks is the digital repository of the University. It contains scholarly work created by KU faculty and staff, as well as material from the University Archives. KU ScholarWorks makes important research and historical items available to a wider audience and helps assure their long-term preservation. The University of Kansas's KU ScholarWorks Pre-1923 Theses and Dissertation collection was digitized by the Scholarly Communications program staff in the KU Libraries' Center for Digital Scholarship. These theses and dissertations range from 1883 - 1921 and reflect topics from Engineering and History to Economics and Chemistry, including titles like A Study of Terpeneless Lemon Extracts, English Interest in the Abolition of the Slave Trade, and Aspects of the Gothic Romance.

One: Nuts and Bolts.- 1. Mental Representation.- Symbolism: The Classical Paradigm.- Cracks in the Symbolic Paradigm.- Connectionism: The Other Paradigm.- Methods of Models.- Assessing Theories of Mental Representation.- 2. Partitioned Representations.- General Overview.- The Contents of Spaces.- Parochial Reasoning.- Primary Contexts.- Partitioned Semantics.- Coherence.- Consolidation.- Secondary Contexts.- A Typology of Spaces.- Where Partitioned Representations Get Their Power.- Summary and Conclusions.- 3. Language: Process and Structure.- A Simple Philosophy of Language.- Linguistic Explanation.- The Process of Language Understanding.- Linguistic Evidence for Mental Representations.- 4. Three Levels of Language Processing.- Parochial Processing.- Distribution.- Contextualization.- An Example Discourse.- Conclusions.- Two: Studies in Language.- 5. Pedro's Donkey and Oedipus's Mother.- Some Common Parochial Linguistic Processes.- Some Common Cases of Distribution.- Interaction of Distribution and Parochial Processes.- Summary and Conclusions.- 6. Satisfying Presuppositions in Discourse.- The Problem of Presupposition.- Presupposition and Parochial Processing.- What Happens in Complex Sentences?.- Conclusions.- 7. Space Frogs and Henry Ford.- Linguistic Evidence for Contextualization.- The Semantic Contributions of Space Cues.- Summary.- 8. Temporal Aspect.- Reference Time: Temporal Perspective.- Semantics and Construction.- Reference Time: Contextualization.- The Case of the Present Perfect.- Conclusion.- 9. General Conclusions.- An Assessment of Partitioned Representations.- Prospectus.- The Importance of Partitioned Representations.- Appendices: Formal Models.- 10. A Logic of Partitioned Representations.- The Syntax of PR.- Rules of Inference for PR.- The Semantics of PR.- Soundness.- Conclusions.- 11. Generalized Natural Deduction.- Generalized Natural Deduction.- Time and Action.- Frames.- Summary and Conclusions.- 12. A Computational Model.- The Design of Spaceprobe.- Customizing Digestion.- Restructuring Rules for Distribution.- Handling Queries.- Language Understanding in Spaceprobe.- Summary.- References.- Author Index.