Connectionism: Difference between revisions

Many connectionist principles can be traced to early work in [[psychology]], such as that of [[William James]].<ref>{{cite book |last1=Anderson |first1= James A.|last2=Rosenfeld |first2= Edward |date= 1989|title= Neurocomputing: Foundations of Research|url= |location= |publisher= A Bradford Book |page= 1|chapter = Chapter 1: (1890) William James ''Psychology (Brief Course)'' |isbn=978-0262510486 |accessdate= }}</ref> Psychological theories based on knowledge about the human brain were fashionable in the late 19th century. As early as 1869, the neurologist [[John Hughlings Jackson]] argued for multi-level, distributed systems. Following from this lead, [[Herbert Spencer]]'s ''Principles of Psychology'', 3rd edition (1872), and [[Sigmund Freud]]'s ''Project for a Scientific Psychology'' (composed 1895) propounded connectionist or proto-connectionist theories. These tended to be speculative theories. But by the early 20th century, [[Edward Thorndike]] was experimenting on learning that posited a connectionist type network.

 

 

Another form of connectionist model was the [[Stratificational linguistics|relational network]] framework developed by the [[linguist]] [[Sydney Lamb]] in the 1960s. Relational networks have been only used by linguists, and were never unified with the PDP approach. As a result, they are now used by very few researchers.