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59Marr's Attacks: On Reductionism and VaguenessTopics in Cognitive Science 7 (2): 323-335. 2015.It has been suggested that Marr took the three levels he famously identifies to be independent. In this paper, we argue that Marr's view is more nuanced. Specifically, we show that the view explicitly articulated in his work attempts to integrate the levels, and in doing so results in Marr attacking both reductionism and vagueness. The result is a perspective in which both high-level information-processing constraints and low-level implementational constraints play mutually reinforcing and const…Read more
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81Dynamical models and Van gelder's dynamicismBehavioral and Brain Sciences 21 (5): 639-639. 1998.Van Gelder has presented a position which he ties closely to a broad class of models known as dynamical models. While supporting many of his broader claims about the importance of this class (as has been argued by connectionists for quite some time), I note that there are a number of unique characteristics of his brand of dynamicism. I suggest that these characteristics engender difficulties for his view
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112Attractive and in-discrete: A critique of two putative virtues of the dynamicist theory of mindMinds and Machines 11 (3): 417-426. 2001.I argue that dynamicism does not provide a convincing alternative to currently available cognitive theories. First, I show that the attractor dynamics of dynamicist models are inadequate for accounting for high-level cognition. Second, I argue that dynamicist arguments for the rejection of computation and representation are unsound in light of recent empirical findings. This new evidence provides a basis for questioning the importance of continuity to cognitive function, challenging a central co…Read more
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Compositionality and biologically plausible modelsIn W. Hinzen, E. Machery & M. Werning (eds.), Oxford Handbook of Compositionality, Oxford University Press. 2009.
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216The myth of the Turing machine: The failings of functionalism and related thesesJournal of Experimental and Theoretical Artificial Intelligence 14 (1): 1-8. 2002.The properties of Turing’s famous ‘universal machine’ has long sustained functionalist intuitions about the nature of cognition. Here, I show that there is a logical problem with standard functionalist arguments for multiple realizability. These arguments rely essentially on Turing’s powerful insights regarding computation. In addressing a possible reply to this criticism, I further argue that functionalism is not a useful approach for understanding what it is to have a mind. In particular, I sh…Read more
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66Integrating structure and meaning: a distributed model of analogical mappingCognitive Science 25 (2): 245-286. 2001.In this paper we present Drama, a distributed model of analogical mapping that integrates semantic and structural constraints on constructing analogies. Specifically, Drama uses holographic reduced representations (Plate, 1994), a distributed representation scheme, to model the effects of structure and meaning on human performance of analogical mapping. Drama is compared to three symbolic models of analogy (SME, Copycat, and ACME) and one partially distributed model (LISA). We describe Drama's p…Read more
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172Computational neuroscienceIn Paul R. Thagard (ed.), Handbook of the Philosophy of Psychology and Cognitive Science, Elsevier. forthcoming.<b>Keywords</b>: computational neuroscience, neural coding, brain function, neural modeling, cognitive modeling, computation, representation, neuroscience, neuropsychology, semantics, theoretical psychology, theoretical neuroscience.
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74Concepts as Semantic Pointers: A Framework and Computational ModelCognitive Science 40 (5): 1128-1162. 2016.The reconciliation of theories of concepts based on prototypes, exemplars, and theory-like structures is a longstanding problem in cognitive science. In response to this problem, researchers have recently tended to adopt either hybrid theories that combine various kinds of representational structure, or eliminative theories that replace concepts with a more finely grained taxonomy of mental representations. In this paper, we describe an alternative approach involving a single class of mental rep…Read more
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102Is the brain a quantum computer?Cognitive Science 30 (3): 593-603. 2006.We argue that computation via quantum mechanical processes is irrelevant to explaining how brains produce thought, contrary to the ongoing speculations of many theorists. First, quantum effects do not have the temporal properties required for neural information processing. Second, there are substantial physical obstacles to any organic instantiation of quantum computation. Third, there is no psychological evidence that such mental phenomena as consciousness and mathematical thinking require expl…Read more
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345How Neurons Mean: A Neurocomputational Theory of Representational ContentDissertation, Washington University in St. Louis. 2000.Questions concerning the nature of representation and what representations are about have been a staple of Western philosophy since Aristotle. Recently, these same questions have begun to concern neuroscientists, who have developed new techniques and theories for understanding how the locus of neurobiological representation, the brain, operates. My dissertation draws on philosophy and neuroscience to develop a novel theory of representational content