quote:
Originally posted by tracey:
well .. It's honestly something I went and read up on so this is just a blather on my part ..
"Connectionism is an alternative model of intelligence which has very different properties, and which may be better suited to accounting for general intelligence."
"Parallel distributed processing models assume that cognitive processes depend on paterns of activation in highly interconnecten computational networks that resemble neural networks."
In a word, yes.
Human beings have always compared the brain to the existing information technology of the day. I think it was Aristotle who said, "Experience is the signet that sets itself upon the wax of memory," or something like that. Memory isn't like a hard-drive, though. Each time we remember something, we re-create the memory based on cues. PhotoReading a book stimulates the "pattern" on which memory of the book is created. Activation strengthens this pattern.
The example I've seen used to demonstrate how memory is recreated is one's own phone number. Because the conscious mind needs to be clear of "clutter" in order to process information effeciently, no one constantly keeps their phone number in mind. Yet, if you were given a page of phone numbers, you could find it quite easily, and without reading every phone number. Your brain would recognize the pattern of the phone number from the first few digits, and your eyes would be drawn to it straight away.
Doing manual activation is much the same. You activate four to eleven percent of the book, but gain somewhere around sixty percent comprehension, because you already know where to look.
