The second volume in the Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science series, this collection presents recent work in the fields of phonology, morphology, semantics, and neurolinguistics. Its overall theme is the relationship between the contents of grammatical formalisms and their real-time realizations in machine or biological systems. Individual essays address such topics as learnability, implementability, computational issues, parameter setting, and neurolinguistic issues. Contributors include Janet Dean Fodor, Richard T. Oehrle, Bob Carpenter, Edward P. Stabler, Elan Dresher, Arnold...

Over the last decade, an emerging form of computational modeling has steadily gained the respect of many researchers as a radically new and promising approach to cognitive science. Known by a number of names, including "connectionism," "neural networks," and "parallel distributed processing" (PDP), this method of computation attempts to model the neural processes that are assumed to underlie cognitive functions in human beings. Unlike the digital computation methods used by AI researchers, connectionist models claim to approximate the kind of spontaneous, creative, and somewhat unpredictable...

Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science is an interdisciplinary series bringing together topics of interest to psychologists, philosophers, cognitive scientists, and linguists. Each volume is based on conferences organized at Simon Fraser University, with chapters added from nonparticipants to ensure balanced and adequate coverage from the topic under study. The fifth volume examines the role of perception in cognitive psychology in light of recent events. Despite the wide scope of the intended topic, however, papers presented at the conference and solicited for this text all focus on...

This important book presents seminal contributions to the emerging synthesis of logic and cognitive psychology. Logicians, who typically concern themselves with ideal reasoning processes, have rarely crossed paths with cognitive psychologists and their more empirical endeavors. With the introduction of a landmark semantic theory by Gonzalo E. Reyes, however, the fields have somewhat reconciled and together have been fruitful in shedding new light on several issues--for example, on how children may master proper names and count nouns, and thus acquire knowledge. Authored by an outstanding...

Is language somehow innate in the structure of the human brain, or is it completely learned? This debate is still at the heart of linguistics, especially as it intersects with psychology and cognitive science. In collecting papers which discuss the evidence and arguments regarding this difficult question, The Inheritance and Innateness of Grammars considers cases ranging from infants who are just beginning to learn the properties of a native language to language-impaired adults who will never learn one. These studies show that, while precursors of language exist in other creatures,...

Is language somehow innate in the structure of the human brain, or is it completely learned? This debate is still at the heart of linguistics, especially as it intersects with psychology and cognitive science. In collecting papers which discuss the evidence and arguments regarding this difficult question, The Inheritance and Innateness of Grammars considers cases ranging from infants who are just beginning to learn the properties of a native language to language-impaired adults who will never learn one. These studies show that, while precursors of language exist in other creatures,...

This collection focuses on questions that arise when morality is considered from the perspective of recent work on rational choice and evolution. Linking questions like "Is it rational to be moral?" to the evolution of cooperation in "The Prisoners Dilemma," the book brings together new work using models from game theory, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science, as well as from philosophical analysis. Among the contributors are leading figures in these fields, including David Gauthier, Paul M. Churchland, Brian Skyrms, Ronald de Sousa, and Elliot Sober.

This collection focuses on questions that arise when morality is considered from the perspective of recent work on rational choice and evolution. Linking questions like "Is it rational to be moral?" to the evolution of cooperation in "The Prisoners Dilemma," the book brings together new work using models from game theory, evolutionary biology, and cognitive science, as well as from philosophical analysis. Among the contributors are leading figures in these fields, including David Gauthier, Paul M. Churchland, Brian Skyrms, Ronald de Sousa, and Elliot Sober.

This volume in the Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science series concerns metarepresentation: the construction and use of representations that represent other representations. Metarepresentations are ubiquitous among human beings, whenever we think or talk about mental states or linguistic acts, or theorize about the mind or language. This volume collects previously unpublished studies on the subject by an interdisciplinary group of contributors, including Daniel Dennett, Alvin Goldman, Keith Lehrer, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby.

This volume in the Vancouver Studies in Cognitive Science series concerns metarepresentation: the construction and use of representations that represent other representations. Metarepresentations are ubiquitous among human beings, whenever we think or talk about mental states or linguistic acts, or theorize about the mind or language. This volume collects previously unpublished studies on the subject by an interdisciplinary group of contributors, including Daniel Dennett, Alvin Goldman, Keith Lehrer, Leda Cosmides and John Tooby.