Connectionist modelling and neural network applications had become a major sub-field of cognitive science by the mid-1990s. In this ground-breaking book, originally published in 1995, leading connectionists shed light on current approaches to memory and language modelling at the time. The book is divided into four sections: Memory; Reading; Computation and statistics; Speech and audition. Each section is introduced and set in context by the editors, allowing a wide range of language and memory issues to be addressed in one volume. This authoritative advanced level book will still be of interest for all engaged in connectionist research and the related areas of cognitive science concerned with language and memory.

Connectionist modelling and neural network applications had become a major sub-field of cognitive science by the mid-1990s. In this ground-breaking book, originally published in 1995, leading connectionists shed light on current approaches to memory and language modelling at the time. The book is divided into four sections: Memory; Reading; Computation and statistics; Speech and audition. Each section is introduced and set in context by the editors, allowing a wide range of language and memory issues to be addressed in one volume. This authoritative advanced level book will still be of interest for all engaged in connectionist research and the related areas of cognitive science concerned with language and memory.

Connectionist modelling and neural network applications had become a major sub-field of cognitive science by the mid-1990s. In this ground-breaking book, originally published in 1995, leading connectionists shed light on current approaches to memory and language modelling at the time. The book is divided into four sections: Memory; Reading; Computation and statistics; Speech and audition. Each section is introduced and set in context by the editors, allowing a wide range of language and memory issues to be addressed in one volume. This authoritative advanced level book will still be of interest for all engaged in connectionist research and the related areas of cognitive science concerned with language and memory.

Since the 1970s the cognitive sciences have offered multidisciplinary ways of understanding the mind and cognition. The MIT Encyclopedia of the Cognitive Sciences (MITECS) is a landmark, comprehensive reference work that represents the methodological and theoretical diversity of this changing field. At the core of the encyclopedia are 471 concise entries, from Acquisition and Adaptationism to Wundt and X-bar Theory. Each article, written by a leading researcher in the field, provides an accessible introduction to an important concept in the cognitive sciences, as well as references or further readings. Six extended essays, which collectively serve as a roadmap to the articles, provide overviews of each of six major areas of cognitive science: Philosophy; Psychology; Neurosciences; Computational Intelligence; Linguistics and Language; and Culture, Cognition, and Evolution. For both students and researchers, MITECS will be an indispensable guide to the current state of the cognitive sciences.

III. Language & Thought: Sharon Thompson-Schill (Volume Editor) (Topics covered include embodied cognition; discourse and dialogue; reading; creativity; speech production; concepts and categorization; culture and cognition; reasoning; sentence processing; bilingualism; speech perception; spatial cognition; word processing; semantic memory; moral reasoning.)

Risto Miikkulainen draws on recent connectionist work in language comprehension tocreate a model that can understand natural language. Using the DISCERN system as an example, hedescribes a general approach to building high-level cognitive models from distributed neuralnetworks and shows how the special properties of such networks are useful in modeling humanperformance. In this approach connectionist networks are not only plausible models of isolatedcognitive phenomena, but also sufficient constituents for complete artificial intelligencesystems.Distributed neural networks have been very successful in modeling isolated cognitivephenomena, but complex high-level behavior has been tractable only with symbolic artificialintelligence techniques. Aiming to bridge this gap, Miikkulainen describes DISCERN, a completenatural language processing system implemented entirely at the subsymbolic level. In DISCERN,distributed neural network models of parsing, generating, reasoning, lexical processing, andepisodic memory are integrated into a single system that learns to read, paraphrase, and answerquestions about stereotypical narratives.Miikkulainen's work, which includes a comprehensive surveyof the connectionist literature related to natural language processing, will prove especiallyvaluable to researchers interested in practical techniques for high-level representation,inferencing, memory modeling, and modular connectionist architectures.Risto Miikkulainen is anAssistant Professor in the Department of Computer Sciences at The University of Texas atAustin.

The progression from newborn to sophisticated language user in just a few short years is often described as wonderful and miraculous. What are the biological, cognitive, and social underpinnings of this miracle? What major language development milestones occur in infancy? What methodologies do researchers employ in studying this progression? Why do some become adept at multiple languages while others face a lifelong struggle with just one? What accounts for declines in language proficiency, and how might such declines be moderated? Despite an abundance of textbooks, specialized monographs, and a couple of academic handbooks, there has been no encyclopedic reference work in this area--until now. The Encyclopedia of Language Development covers the breadth of theory and research on language development from birth through adulthood, as well as their practical application. Features: This affordable A-to-Z reference includes 200 articles that address such topic areas as theories and research tradition; biological perspectives; cognitive perspectives; family, peer, and social influences; bilingualism; special populations and disorders; and more. All articles (signed and authored by key figures in the field) conclude with cross reference links and suggestions for further reading. Appendices include a Resource Guide with annotated lists of classic books and articles, journals, associations, and web sites; a Glossary of specialized terms; and a Chronology offering an overview and history of the field. A thematic Reader’s Guide groups related articles by broad topic areas as one handy search feature on the e-Reference platform, which includes a comprehensive index of search terms. Available in both print and electronic formats, Encyclopedia of Language Development is a must-have reference for researchers and is ideal for library reference or circulating collections.

Working memory--the ability to keep important information in mind while comprehending, thinking, and acting--varies considerably from person to person and changes dramatically during each person's life. Understanding such individual and developmental differences is crucial because working memory is a major contributor to general intellectual functioning. This volume offers a state-of-the-art, integrative, and comprehensive approach to understanding variation in working memory by presenting explicit, detailed comparisons of the leading theories. It incorporates views from the different research groups that operate on each side of the Atlantic, and covers working-memory research on a wide variety of populations, including healthy adults, children with and without learning difficulties, older adults, and adults and children with neurological disorders. A particular strength of this volume is that each research group explicitly addresses the same set of theoretical questions, from the perspective of both their own theoretical and experimental work and from the perspective of relevant alternative approaches. Through these questions, each research group considers their overarching theory of working memory, specifies the critical sources of working memory variation according to their theory, reflects on the compatibility of their approach with other approaches, and assesses their contribution to general working memory theory. This shared focus across chapters unifies the volume and highlights the similarities and differences among the various theories. Each chapter includes both a summary of research positions and a detailed discussion of each position. Variation in Working Memory achieves coherence across its chapters, while presenting the entire range of current theoretical and experimental approaches to variation in working memory.

Presents an animal-based, largely non-symbolic approach to understanding the basic mechanisms involved in adaptive intelligence. Contributions discuss and explain concepts and techniques, providing a balance of both theoretical and empirical approaches.

This book evaluates the involvement of working memory in five central aspects of language processing: vocabulary acquisition, speech production, reading development, skilled reading, and comprehension. The authors draw upon experimental, neuropsychological and developmental evidence in a wide-ranging evaluation of the contribution of two components of working memory to each aspect of language. The two components are the phonological loop, which is specialised for the processing and maintenance of verbal material, and the general-purpose processing system of the central executive. A full introduction to the application of the working memory model to normal adults, neuropsychological patients and children is provided in the two opening chapters. Non-experts within this area will find these chapters particularly useful in providing a clear statement of the current theoretical and empirical status of the working memory model. Each of the following chapters examines the involvement of working memory in one specialised aspect of language processing, in each case integrating the available experimental, neuropsychological and developmental evidence. The book will therefore be of direct relevance to researchers interested in both language processing and memory. Working Memory and Language is unique in that it draws together findings from normal adults, brain-damaged patients, and children. For each of these populations, working memory involvement in language processing ranging from the speech production to comprehension are evaluated. Working Memory and Language provides a comprehensive analysis of just what roles working memory does play in the processing of language.