ABSTRACT
Researchers interested in human cognitive processes have long used computer simulations to try to identify the principles of cognition. The strategy has been to build computational models that embody putative principles and then to examine how well such models capture human performance in cognitive tasks, Until the 1980s, this effort was undertaken within the context of the “computer metaphor” of mind. Researchers built computational models based on the conceptualization that the human mind operated as though it were a conventional digital computer. However, with the advent of so-called connectionist, neural network, or parallel distributed processing models (Anderson, Silverstein, Ritz, & Jones, 1977; Hinton & Anderson, 1981; McClelland & Rumelhart, 1981; McClelland, Rumelhart, & the PDF Research Group, 1986; Rumelhart, McClelland, & the PDF Research Group, 1986), researchers began exploring the implications of principles that are more broadly consistent with the style of computation employed by the brain.
