ABSTRACT
This chapter considers two prominent approaches to cognition that display explicit antagonism toward the computational ideas that form the core of standard cognitive science. The quickest route to J. J. Gibson’s theory of perception is to see it as a repudiation of the idea that the visual system confronts an inverse optics problem. Recall that cognitivist theories of perception suppose the stimuli for perception to be impoverished. When cognitivists claim that psychological processes are computational, and that the brain is to computer hardware as the mind is to software, one might wonder where in the brain this computer exists and where mental programs are stored. Michael Dawson describes a connectionist network that he and colleagues designed to analyze brain images for indications of Alzheimer’s disease. The images were created with single photon emission computed tomography and appeared inadequate for the purpose of identifying mild cases of the disease.
