ABSTRACT
TH I S C H A P T E R S E T S out to provide an introduction to the areaof neural network models. As such, it is less ambitious than previous chapters. It would be totally beyond the scope of a single chapter to review all the attempts to model attentional phenomena that have been published in the literature. Instead, this chapter sets out to explain the basic principles, and to illustrate with one or two examples how such models have been applied within this domain. The aim of the chapter is to enable readers to grasp the fundamental principles, so that they feel confident to engage with literature in the area. Such models are likely to increase in frequency and importance in the future, and readers will therefore need to be able to read and evaluate this type of work. It is the author’s view that there has been much misunderstanding of the field in recent years, in particular with many workers not understanding the exact nature of such models or what role they can play in cognitive neuropsychology. In particular, such models are frequently being presented at applied neuropsychology conferences and there is an urgent need for this audience to become critically articulate in this area. If the reader finishes this chapter imbued with a healthy scepticism and an intention to treat such models with exactly the same degree of critical appraisal as any other theory, then this section of the book will have served its purpose.
