Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience: Understanding the Mind by Simulating the Brain

Book Description

The goal of computational cognitive neuroscience is to understand how the brain embodies the mind by using biologically based computational models comprising networks of neuronlike units. This text, based on a course taught by Randall O'Reilly and Yuko Munakata over the past several years, provides an in-depth introduction to the main ideas in the field. The neural units in the simulations use equations based directly on the ion channels that govern the behavior of real neurons, and the neural networks incorporate anatomical and physiological properties of the neocortex. Thus the text provides the student with knowledge of the basic biology of the brain as well as the computational skills needed to simulate large-scale cognitive phenomena.

The text consists of two parts. The first part covers basic neural computation mechanisms: individual neurons, neural networks, and learning mechanisms. The second part covers large-scale brain area organization and cognitive phenomena: perception and attention, memory, language, and higher-level cognition. The second part is relatively self-contained and can be used separately for mechanistically oriented cognitive neuroscience courses. Integrated throughout the text are more than forty different simulation models, many of them full-scale research-grade models, with friendly interfaces and accompanying exercises. The simulation software (PDP++, available for all major platforms) and simulations can be downloaded free of charge from the Web. Exercise solutions are available, and the text includes full information on the software.

Customer Reviews:

Great for Grads/Professional--confusing and convoluted for undergrad.......2006-11-17

I am currently taking a honors psych class which utilizes this textbook as a lab handout (we solve the exercises closing out each chapter). I find this book very hard to read due to the language and the explanations the authors use to explain certain topics. The book reads more like a guide for those already familiar with the subject matter, and the questions closing out each chapter are even harder to understand than the chapter text itself. If the authors wish the book to be of any help to undergrads who are not already familiar with the topic they should take a step back and revise the text so that it is understandable for all. NOTE TO UA STUDENTS THINKING OF TAKING THE CLASS WHICH UTILIZES THIS BOOK
---->dont.

Best introduction to neural network models of cognitive processes.......2006-03-23

"Computational Explorations in Cognitive Neuroscience" provides a very readable overview of state-of-the-art neural network models for human cognition with an emphasis on both biological plausibility and experimental (psychological/cognitive) evidence.

A new paradigm.......2000-09-27

In this book, research themes, which include perception, memory, language as well as high-level cognition, are explained in terms of computation. Their theory is based on brain science, computer science, and psychology. Though the authors speculate about the functions of each part of the brain and the relation among them to some extent, the authors propose a new paradigm to existing sciences. Their integrative approach and method are very simulative, and I've got a lot of hints from this book. But I don't need the usageof particular software, PDP++ in such a theoretical book. The authors explain and demonstrate their models and theories using PDP++ at the end of each chapter. If you want to study how to use PDP++ as well as their theories, this book will be extremely good one.

A new paradigm.......2000-09-27

In this book, research themes including perception, memory, and language as well as high-level cognition are explained in terms of computation. Their theories are based on brain science, computer science, and psychology. Though the authors speculate about the functions of the brain and the relation among them to some extent, the authors propose a new paradigm to existing sciences. Their integrative approach and method are very simulative, and I've got a lot of hints from this book. But I don't need the usage of particular software, PDP++ in such a theoretical book. The authors explain and demonstrate their models and theories using PDP++ at the end of each chapter. If you want to study how to use PDP++ as well as their theories, this book will be truly excellent.

Average customer rating:

How can I get this book? please help!
Useful workbook to learn about ANNs
Badly out of date
Badly out of date

Understanding Neural Networks
Caudill
Manufacturer: M.I.T. PRESS
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0262530996

Book Description

Understanding Neural Networks is a textbook and workbook that provides a unique interactive learning environment. With or without the aid of a classroom instructor, it allows students and other users to learn about neural networks while gaining practical, hands-on experience with all of the leading network models. Each model is presented as realistically as possible. Also included are chapter exercises and questions, many with illustrations.

The key feature of this workbook is the software. Available for PC-ATs and compatibles and the Macintosh, these disks contain a collection of full-featured commercial-quality simulators for the most important network paradigms. The user interface is graphic and easy to use, and the simulators are consistent across all networks. The simulators can also build and train significantly large networks, allowing users to construct networks on their own with data relevant to their problems.

Volume 1 covers learning, attractor networks, and hierarchical networks (including back-propagation networks). Volume 2 takes up temporal networks (including recurrent networks), self-organizing networks, higher-order networks, and such new directions in neural networks as fuzzy networks and evolutionary networks. Both volumes contain instructions on how to use the workbook, an introduction, appendixes, a table of random numbers, a glossary, a bibliography, and index.

Maureen Caudill is a consultant on neural networks in San Diego. Charles Butler is Senior Principal Scientist at Physical Sciences in Alexandria, Virginia. He is a specialist in the development of neural-network applications. They are the authors of Naturally Intelligent Systems, a comprehensive nonmathematical introduction to neural networks.

Customer Reviews:

How can I get this book? please help!.......2004-07-14

Anyone who can help me get this book, please email me wr1230_99@hotmail.com
THANKS A LOT!

Useful workbook to learn about ANNs.......2000-11-26

Well written workbook for the interested general reader to gain an understanding of neural networks. Although some workbooks come with neural network simulator software for a personal computer (mine did not, and I was unable to evaluate the simulator), the printed workbook itself is extremely interactive and has the reader work through simulations of simple neural networks. This workbook covers the perceptron, minimum error learning, Hebbian learning, competitive learning, attractor networks (single layer, double layer and statistical), and back propagation networks.

Badly out of date.......2000-07-05

Don't waste your money. This isn't a bad text, in terms of explaining the theory, but it includes a 3.5" floppy disk that is so old my computer couldn't even read the files. It's not worth the money without the software. The author does not appear to have published any related work in the last four or five years, and I have not found any pointers to updated software on the Web (probably because the book predates the web). I guess this might make a good museum item, if you don't take the cellophane off it.

Badly out of date.......2000-07-05

A fairly good text in terms of explanation of theory and so on, but the accompanying disk contains neural network simulation software that is six or eight years old. I bought the Macintosh version, and I couldn't even read some of the files (either because the file format was ancient or because the floppy disk was so old the files had been corrupted by ambient radiation). I had to dig out my old PowerBook so I had a floppy disk drive to use. Big surprise - I bought it in a bookstore and the publication date was not displayed on the outside of the cellophane wrapped package.

Where God and Science Meet [Three Volumes]: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion (Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality)

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Where God and Science Meet [Three Volumes]: How Brain and Evolutionary Studies Alter Our Understanding of Religion (Psychology, Religion, and Spirituality)

Manufacturer: Praeger Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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Why We Believe What We Believe: Uncovering Our Biological Need for Meaning, Spirituality, and Truth
Why God Won't Go Away: Brain Science and the Biology of Belief
The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil
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Six Impossible Things Before Breakfast: The Evolutionary Origins of Belief

ASIN: 0275987884

Book Description

Spiritual practices, or awakenings, have an impact on brain, mind and personality. These changes are being scientifically predicted and proven. For example, studies show Buddhist priests and Franciscan nuns at the peak of religious feelings show a functional change in the lobes of their brain. Similar processes have been found in people with epilepsy, which Hippocrates called "the sacred disease." New research is showing that not only does a person's brain activity change in particular areas while that person is experiencing religious epiphany, but such events can be created for some people, even self-professed atheists, by stimulating various parts of the brain. In this far-reaching and novel set, experts from across the nation and around the world present evolutionary, neuroscientific, and psychological approaches to explaining and exploring religion, including the newest findings and evidence that have spurred the fledgling field of neurotheology. It is not the goal of neurotheology to prove or disprove the existence of God, but to understand the biology of spiritual experiences. Such experiences seem to exist outside time and space - caused by the brain for some reason losing its perception of a boundary between physical body and outside world - and could help explain other intangible events, such as altered states of consciousness, possessions, alien visitations, near-death experiences and out-of-body events. Understanding them - as well as how and why these abilities evolved in the brain - could also help us understand how religion contributes to survival of the human race. Eminent contributors to this set help us answer questions including: How does religion better our brain function? What is the difference between a religious person and a terrorist who kills in the name of religion? Is there one site or function in the brain necessary for religious experience?

Understanding Practice : Perspectives on Activity and Context (Learning in Doing : Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)

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Understanding Practice : Perspectives on Activity and Context (Learning in Doing : Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)

Manufacturer: Cambridge University Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Participation (Learning in Doing: Social, Cognitive and Computational Perspectives)
Cultivating Communities of Practice
Knowledge and Communities (Resources for the Knowledge-Based Economy,)
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The Company of the Future

ASIN: 0521558514

Book Description

Understanding Practice brings together many different perspectives that have been applied to examining social context. From Ole Dreier's work on the therapeutic relationship, to Hugh Mehan's work on learning disabled students, to Charles and Janet Keller's work on blacksmithing, the chapters form a diverse and fascinating look at situated learning. A distinctive feature of the book is the wide range of theoretical and methodological approaches to the problem of understanding cognition in everyday settings.

Mindreading: An Integrated Account of Pretence, Self-Awareness, and Understanding Other Minds (Oxford Cognitive Science Series)

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Mindreading: An Integrated Account of Pretence, Self-Awareness, and Understanding Other Minds (Oxford Cognitive Science Series)
Shaun Nichols , and Stephen P. Stich
Manufacturer: Oxford University Press, USA
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Simulating Minds: The Philosophy, Psychology, and Neuroscience of Mindreading (Philosophy of Mind)
Other Minds: How Humans Bridge the Divide between Self and Others
Theories of Theories of Mind
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Architecture of the Imagination: New Essays on Pretence, Possibility, and Fiction

ASIN: 0198236107

Book Description

The everyday capacity to understand the mind, fancifully dubbed 'mindreading', plays an enormous role in our lives. In the latter half of the 20th century mindreading became the object of sustained scientific and theoretical research, capturing the attention of a wide range of disciplines, including philosophy, developmental psychology, behavioral ecology, anthropology, and cognitive psychopathology. What has been missing is a detailed and integrated account of the mental components that underlie this remarkable capacity. Nichols and Stich develop and defend a new account of the psychological mechanisms underlying mindreading. They maintain that it is, as common sense would suggest, vital to distinguish between reading others' minds and reading one's own. In reading other minds, the imagination plays a central role. As a result, the authors begin with an explicit and systematic account of pretence and imagination which proposes that pretence representations are contained in a separate mental workspace, the 'Possible World Box', which is part of the basic architecture of the human mind. The mechanisms underlying pretence get recruited when people attempt to understand others and predict their behaviour. In some cases, we use our own mental mechanisms to simulate the mental processes of another, as suggested by the 'simulation theory' of mindreading. However, mindreading also implicates very different kinds of mechanisms that rely on rich bodies of information, as suggested by information-based accounts of mindreading. In addition, the authors argue, reading other minds involves important processes that don't fit into either category. None of these mechanisms, though, explain how we read our own minds, which, according to the authors, requires invoking an entirely independent set of mechanisms. What we find, then, is an intricate web of mental components to explain our fascinating and multifarious knack of understanding minds. This account provides a valuable framework for future work on mindreading and has broad implications for philosophical debates that have surrounded the issue for the last quarter century.

Creativity: Understanding Innovation in Problem Solving, Science, Invention, and the Arts

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Creativity: Understanding Innovation in Problem Solving, Science, Invention, and the Arts
Robert W. Weisberg
Manufacturer: Wiley
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

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The International Handbook of Creativity
Explaining Creativity: The Science of Human Innovation
Creativity: Flow and the Psychology of Discovery and Invention
Handbook Of Creativity
The Nature of Creative Development

ASIN: 0471739995

Book Description

How cognitive psychology explains human creativity

Conventional wisdom holds that creativity is a mysterious quality present in a select few individuals. The rest of us, the common view goes, can only stand in awe of great creative achievements: we could never paint Guernica or devise the structure of the DNA molecule because we lack access to the rarified thoughts and inspirations that bless geniuses like Picasso or Watson and Crick. Presented with this view, today's cognitive psychologists largely differ finding instead that "ordinary" people employ the same creative thought processes as the greats. Though used and developed differently by different people, creativity can and should be studied as a positive psychological feature shared by all humans.

Creativity: Understanding Innovation in Problem Solving, Science, Invention, and the Arts presents the major psychological theories of creativity and illustrates important concepts with vibrant and detailed case studies that exemplify how to study creative acts with scientific rigor.

Creativity includes:

Two in-depth case studies—Watson and Crick's modeling of the DNA structure and Picasso's painting of Guernica— serve as examples throughout the text
Methods used by psychologists to study the multiple facets of creativity
The "ordinary thinking" or cognitive view of creativity and its challengers
How problem–solving and experience relate to creative thinking
Genius and madness and the relationship between creativity and psychopathology
The possible role of the unconscious in creativity
Psychometrics—testing for creativity and how personality factors affect creativity
Confluence theories that use cognitive, personality, environmental, and other components to describe creativity

Clearly and engagingly written by noted creativity expert Robert Weisberg, Creativity: Understanding Innovation in Problem Solving, Science, Invention, and the Arts takes both students and lay readers on an in-depth journey through contemporary cognitive psychology, showing how the discipline understands one of the most fundamental and fascinating human abilities.

"This book will be a hit. It fills a large gap in the literature. It is a well-written, scholarly, balanced, and engaging book that will be enjoyed by students and faculty alike."
—David Goldstein, University of Toronto

Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness (Science Masters Series)
Average customer rating:

The right approach

Very interesting philosohical exploration

Brilliant and accessible

wonderful

From this point forward

Kinds of Minds: Towards an Understanding of Consciousness (Science Masters Series)
Daniel C. Dennett
Manufacturer: Basic Books
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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ASIN: 0465073514

Amazon.com

In Consciousness Explained, Daniel Dennett embarks on the audacious task of explaining human consciousness. He sets his sights even higher for Kinds of Minds, attempting to provide a more general explanation of consciousness. But don't be put off: the book is short, easy to read, and makes a good introduction to Dennett's richly interdisciplinary oeuvre. While beginners will appreciate Dennett's appeals to intuitive moral considerations to emphasize the importance of investigating consciousness, there is much in the book to hold the attention of readers already familiar with his previous work.

At the beginning of Kinds of Minds Dennett asks, "What kinds of minds are there? And how do we know?" These two questions--the first ontological, the second epistemological--set the agenda for the book. Intuitions untutored by theory are not capable of answering these questions, Dennett argues, making it necessary to pursue insight from the evolutionary point of view. Accordingly, subsequent chapters are devoted to phylogenetic speculations about agency and intentionality, sensitivity and sentience, and perception and behavior. Particularly charming is the series of squiggly amoebas--the Darwinian, Skinnerian, Popperian, and Gregorian creatures--that illustrates the hierarchy of cognitive power. In the final chapter, Dennett returns to the original two questions, ending not with their answers, but, he hopes, with "better versions of the questions themselves." --Glenn Branch

Book Description

In Kinds of Minds , philosopher and cognitive scientist Daniel C. Dennett provides readers with a fascinating evolutionary perspective on how the human mind came to be. Tracing the development of consciousness from its earliest roots, when primitive animals first gained the ability to respond to their environment, he describes the crucial steps that eventually led to the emergence of self-awareness in humans. Along the way, he grapples with such thought-provoking questions as: What is a mind? What is sentience? Why are our minds different from the minds of animals? Do animals feel? Could a robot ever achieve consciousness?

Profound, illuminating, and completely accessible to the lay reader, Kinds of Minds is a landmark work from one of the most foremost authorities on the subject. It is a crucial addition to the philosophical discussion that began with Descartes' theory, "I think, therefore I am."

Customer Reviews:

The right approach.......2007-08-19

To the question, "Where does human consciousness come from?", somebody (I think it may have been William James) answered, "From animal consciousness." Unless one accepts some non-naturalistic explanation, I think that has to be right, and Dennett, who is a philosopher not a biologist, goes squarely up that Darwinian road. Not enough is known to make the whole journey without any gaps, but his account of evolutionary development from Darwinian creatures, to Skinnerian, to Popperian, to Gregorian ones, and of how those transitions might have occurred, is extremely suggestive about the major aspects of the route that has culminated (so far) in the human kind of mind. Exciting stuff, no doubt about it.

The book is very well-written, but not an easy read in a few sections, where steps in the argument are more suggested than explicitly stated. I think that's to be expected at the frontier of any science -- and everything about this subject matter lies at the ragged edge of knowledge and speculation. That problem no doubt is exacerbated by the space constraints that this series of short science books imposes. But the overall explanatory approach and framework are clear and persuasive. Dennett's recommendations for further reading are especially good.

Highly recommended.

Very interesting philosohical exploration.......2006-04-23

I could feel my brain stretching as I read this book. It is philosophical but readable.

The main focus of this book is, as implied by the title, the notion that there are several qualitatively different ways that organisms adapt to their environments -- it isn't simply a matter of one organism being "more intelligent" than another. He presents a succession of clear models, increasing in sophistication, for how an organism's behavior can be modulated to improve its chances of reproductive success. I had never thought about these qualitatively different "levels of sophistication," but they make perfect sense to me -- kind of an "Aha!" experience.

I liked it.

Brilliant and accessible.......2005-08-27

As usual, Daniel C. Dennett brings precision to a topic often muddied by wishful thinking, unsupported suppositions and entrenched predisposition. His insights are keen and this book makes a wonderful and accessible introduction to both his books on consciousness (e.g., Consciousness Explained) and his books on evolution (e.g., Darwin's Dangerous Idea).

wonderful.......2005-03-11

commenting on one only aspect of this book may be misguiding as it is so rich of theories, arguments and scientific information.
To summarize I just say that Dennet seems like the Freud of conciousness.

From this point forward.......2002-06-17

If you aren't familiar with the works of Daniel Dennett, this is the starting point of choice. This American philosopher's ability to pose thought-provoking questions is unmatched. In this collection, the focus is on "what is a mind?" How do we define "the mind" and are humans the sole possessors of it? Dennett is not only deft at posing these posers, he presents the questions and his explanations with philosophy's finest prose and wit. His other advantage over his fellow cognitive scientists is his use of Darwin's "dangerous idea," evolution by natural selection. As products of that process, humans are not exempt from its rules. That framework raises the issue of whether other creatures can be said to have "minds." Dennett explores this issue with skillfully chosen examples. These are part of the list of "kinds of minds."

Dennett is famous among philosophers for devising the concept of "the intentional stance." The intentional stance is interpreting the behaviour of an entity." The range of entities is extensive - a simple thermostat has predictable behaviour - when the room is cool, the device closes a circuit turning on the heat. According to Dennett, the simplest creatures exhibited similar "robotic" behaviour, but as life evolved, more complex patterns developed. Dennett argues that "adopting the intentional stance is not just a good idea but the key to unraveling the mysteries of the mind - all kinds of minds." In his view, intentional systems have progressed along the course of evolution in ever complex steps. Humans, with the development of language, have achieved the highest level of cognitive abilities.

Book Description

In these essays Heinz von Foerster discusses some of the fundamental principles that govern how we know the world and how we process the information from which we derive that knowledge. Included are path- breaking articles concerning the principles of computation in neural nets (1967), the definition of self-organizing systems (1960), the nature of cognition (1970), as well as recent expansions on these themes (e.g. "How recursive is communication," 1993). Working with Norbert Wiener, Warren McCullough, and others in the 1960s and 1970s, von Foerster was one of the founders of the science of cybernetics, which has had profound effects both on modern systems theory and on the philosophy of cognition. At the Biological Computer Laboratory at the University of Illinois he produced the first parallel computers and contributed to many other developments in the theory of computation and cognition.

Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding (Tutorial Essays in Cognitive Science)

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Excellent Book

Pragmatics and Natural Language Understanding (Tutorial Essays in Cognitive Science)
Georgia M. Green
Manufacturer: Lawrence Erlbaum
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Pragmatics (Language Workbooks)
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ASIN: 080582166X

Book Description

This book differs from other introductions to pragmatics in approaching the problems of interpreting language use in terms of interpersonal modelling of beliefs and intentions. It is intended to make issues involved in language understanding, such as speech, text, and discourse, accessible to the widest group possible -- not just specialists in linguistics or communication theorists -- but all scholars and researchers whose enterprises depend on having a useful model of how communicative agents understand utterances and expect their own utterances to be understood.

Based on feedback from readers over the past seven years, explanations in every chapter have been improved and updated in this thoroughly revised version of the original text published in 1989. The most extensive revisions concern the relevance of technical notions of mutual and normal belief, and the futility of using the notion 'null context' to describe meaning. In addition, the discussion of implicature now includes an extended explication of "Grice's Cooperative Principle" which attempts to put it in the context of his theory of meaning and rationality, and to preclude misinterpretations which it has suffered over the past 20 years. The revised chapter exploits the notion of normal belief to improve the account of conversational implicature.

Customer Reviews:

Excellent Book.......2006-12-23

Green provides an excellent introduction to a broad range of topics in the field of Pragmatics and does so in lucid, unaffected prose. This book manages to provide a fairly detailed description of numerous phenomena, including indexical and anaphora, the cooperative principle and implicatures, performativity and a great deal more. This is an excellent book for anyone begining to study Pragmatics or for those just interested in a scientific treatment of how language works in everyday life.

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A Wonderful Introduction to Depth in Political Science

Understanding Dogmas And Dreams: A Text
Nancy S. Love
Manufacturer: CQ Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

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Dogmas And Dreams: A Reader In Modern Political Ideologies
Political Thought In America: Conversations And Debates
Ideological Voices: An Anthology In Modern Political Ideas
Marx: Later Political Writings (Cambridge Texts in the History of Political Thought)
American Political Thought, Fifth Edition (American Political Thought (CQ Press))

ASIN: 1933116684

Customer Reviews:

A Wonderful Introduction to Depth in Political Science.......2000-04-08

Nancy Sue Love demonstrates that she is a politial scientist committed to rational understanding and education. This is an illuminating passage through ideology that will be of great use to students and teachers seeking a text that is simultaneously sweeping in its vision, yet a book that draws on the key representatives of ideological development. This is a book my students, who are teachers themselves, choose to keep.

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