Rogers & McClelland/Semantic Cognition: BBS Call for Commentators

Dear Dr. Qwerty, ================================================================== BBS MULTIPLE BOOK REVIEW -- CALL RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS ================================================================== Please DO NOT respond to this email. If you wish to submit a proposal for commentary and/or suggest potential commentators, please go to the new Online Commentary Proposal System at the following URL: http://www.bbsonline.org/perl/commentary/commproposal?authordir=Rogers-0904… * If you only wish to suggest potential commentators, please ignore prompts to submit a proposal with expertise information. * If you experience technical difficulties, please email bbs(a)bbsonline.org. * Please respond to this Call no later than November 1, 2007 NOTE: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) is an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates, or suggested by a BBS Associate. If you are not a BBS Associate, please follow the instructions linked below: http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/associnst.html ================================================================== ** Multiple Book Review Information ** ================================================================== Below is a link to the forthcoming précis of a book accepted for Multiple Book Review in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS). Please note that it is the *BOOK*, not the precis, that is to be reviewed. PRECIS OF: Semantic Cognition: A Parallel Distributed Processing Approach AUTHOR: Timothy T. Rogers and James L. McClelland ABSTRACT: In our recent book, we present a parallel distributed processing theory of the acquisition, representation and use of human semantic knowledge. The theory proposes that semantic abilities arise from the flow of activation amongst simple, neuron-like processing units, as governed by the strengths of interconnecting weights; and that acquisition of new semantic information involves the gradual adjustment of weights in the system in response to experience. These simple ideas explain a wide range of empirical phenomena from studies of categorization, lexical acquisition, and disordered semantic cognition. In this précis we focus on phenomena central to the reaction against similarity-based theories that arose in the 1980's and that subsequently motivated the "theory-theory" approach to semantic knowledge. Specifically, we consider i) how concepts differentiate in early development, ii) why some groupings of items seem to form "good" or coherent categories while others do not, iii) why different properties seem central or important to different concepts, iv) why children and adults sometimes attest to beliefs that seem to contradict their direct experience, v) how concepts reorganize between the ages of 4 and 10, and vi) the relationship between causal knowledge and semantic knowledge. The explanations for these phenomena are illustrated with reference to a simple feed-forward connectionist model; and the relationship between this simple model, the broader theory, and more general issues in cognitive science are discussed. KEYWORDS: Categorization, causal knowledge, concepts, connectionism, development, innateness, learning, semantics, memory, theory-theory. PRECIS: http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Rogers-09042007/Referees/ ================================================================== BBS MULTIPLE BOOK REVIEW -- CALL RESPONSE INSTRUCTIONS ================================================================== Please DO NOT respond to this email. If you wish to submit a proposal for commentary and/or suggest potential commentators, please go to the new Online Commentary Proposal System at the following URL: http://www.bbsonline.org/perl/commentary/commproposal?authordir=Rogers-0904… * If you only wish to suggest potential commentators, please ignore prompts to submit a proposal with expertise information. * If you experience technical difficulties, please email bbs(a)bbsonline.org. * Please respond to this Call no later than November 1, 2007 NOTE: Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) is an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates, or suggested by a BBS Associate. If you are not a BBS Associate, please follow the instructions linked below: http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/associnst.html ================================================================== ================================================================== Paul Bloom - Editor Barbara Finlay - Editor Behavioral and Brain Sciences bbs(a)bbsonline.org http://www.bbsonline.org -------------------------------------------------------------------