This project is aimed at the development of explicit computational models of perceptual and cognitive processes, relying on mechanism which are consistent with what is known about the physiology and anatomy of the brain. Recent work simulating perceptual and cognitive processes indicates that this is a fertile path to follow, but to do this adequately I need to learn more about the brain and more about the simulation of the kinds of computational processes which seem consistent with what goes on in the brain. The first two years of this award would be devoted primarily to obtaining this background, as well as to research applying what I would be learning to a process at the interface between perception and cognition--namely reading. Before the start of the career development award I plan to obtain some basic background in neuroanatomy, neurophysiology, and computer simulation techniques used in artificial intelligence. I plan to spend the first year of the award at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at Massachusetts Institue of Technology, studying recent advances in the understanding of parallel computation, and working on the development of a neurally plausible simulation model of the visual aspects of reading. I plan to spend the second year at the Aphasia Research Center of Boston University at the Boston Veterans Administration Hospital, rounding out my background in the neurological basis of cognition and beginning research designed to use the effects of brain damage as a way of finding out about the nature of the underlying processing system. Specifically, I would study the disturbance of word processing ability that arises in deep dyslexia a type of reading disability resulting from damage in certain ageas of the brain. During the summer of the second year I also plan to participated in an advanced neurophysiology course such as the one offered at Cold Springs Harbor, Long Island. The remaining three years of the career development award would be dedicated to the continued exploration of simulation models of cognitive and perceptual processes constructed in the light of what I would learn during the first two years; and to the writing of a book designed to help establish the approach of developing neurally plausible simulation models as a central part of the study of perceptual and cognitive processes.
| McClelland, J L; Elman, J L (1986) The TRACE model of speech perception. Cogn Psychol 18:1-86 |
| McClelland, J L; Rumelhart, D E (1985) Distributed memory and the representation of general and specific information. J Exp Psychol Gen 114:159-97 |
