----- Forwarded message from Andrew Coward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> ----- From: Andrew Coward <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Date: Wed, 6 Dec 2006 10:48:14 +1000 To: [email protected] Subject: Connectionists: Physiologically Realistic Cognitive Modelling: New Book X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.623)
(Apologies if you receive this announcement more than once) A recently published book, “A System Architecture Approach to the Brain: from Neurons to Consciousness” (ISBN 1-59454-433-6), applies some developments in systems theory to demonstrate that detailed modelling of higher cognitive processes in terms of neurophysiology requires some very specific architectural approaches. The book demonstrates theoretical arguments that any learning system that is subject to a range of practical considerations will be constrained within a set of architectural bounds called the recommendation architecture. The theoretical arguments have been developed by analogy with the ways in which practical considerations constrain the architectures of extremely complex electronic control systems, although there is minimal direct resemblance between such architectures and those of learning systems. The practical considerations are (1) the need to perform a large number of behavioural features with relatively limited physical resources for information recording, information processing and internal information communication; (2) the need to add and modify features without side effects on other features; (3) the need to protect the many different meanings of information generated by one part of the system and utilized for different purposes by each of a number of other parts of the system; (4) the need to maintain the association between results obtained by different parts of the system from a set of system inputs arriving at the same time; (5) the need to limit the volume of information required to specify the system construction process; (6) the need to limit the complexity of the construction process; and (7) the need to recover from construction errors and subsequent physical failures or damage. The system theory demonstrates that if such needs are strong, there are some remarkably specific constraints on the system architecture. There are constraints on how functionality is separated into modules and components, on device information models, on the ways in which devices are organized and connected within and between modules and components, and on the ways in which information can be recorded and processed. One key constraint is a requirement for a separation between a clustering subsystem which defines and detects conditions within the information available to the system, and several competition subsystems which receive some of the conditions and interpret each condition as a recommendation in favour of a range of different behaviours, each with a different weight. These competition subsystems determine the current total recommendation weights of all behaviours across all current conditions and implement the most strongly recommended behaviour. Consequence feedback following a behaviour can set or change recommendation weights but cannot change condition definitions. Furthermore, once a condition has been defined in clustering, there are tight restrictions on subsequent changes. The limited ability to change condition definitions is one primary difference from traditional neural networks. The book describes the strong resemblances between the structures and processes predicted for a system within the recommendation architecture bounds and the physiological structures and processes of the mammal brain. The ways in which the recommendation architecture approach makes it possible to understand experimental results for a wide range of cognitive processes in terms of physiology are described. Electronic implementations of systems within the recommendation architecture bounds are described that confirm the resemblances with biological brains. L. Andrew Coward Research Fellow Department of Computer Science Australian National University Canberra ACT 0200 Australia [EMAIL PROTECTED] tel +61 02 6125 5694 mob +62 0431 529 197 http://cs.anu.edu.au/~Andrew.Coward/ Book Website: http://www.novapublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php? cPath=23_128&products_id=2652 ----- End forwarded message ----- -- Eugen* Leitl <a href="http://leitl.org";>leitl</a> http://leitl.org ______________________________________________________________ ICBM: 48.07100, 11.36820 http://www.ativel.com 8B29F6BE: 099D 78BA 2FD3 B014 B08A 7779 75B0 2443 8B29 F6BE ------- To unsubscribe, change your address, or temporarily deactivate your subscription, please go to http://v2.listbox.com/member/[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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