This is a request for an Independent Scientist Award (K02). The applicant's immediate goals are to continue developing his knowledge and skills in connectionist (or parallel distributed processing) models in general, and applying those models within social psychology. This work fits within his long-term career goal of building integrative theory of mental representations and processes within social psychology. The career development plan involv3es building knowledge and skills related to connectionist models through relevant books, journals, and conferences; continuing to work with computer simulations of connectionist models applied to social psychological topics; and improving the accessibility of connectionist modeling for social psychologists in general. This work will take place at Purdue University, an extremely supportive training environment that offers access to numerous researchers with relevant expertise. The research plan is to continue developing and testing connectionist models with social psychology. The models' predictions, made precise and explicit by computer simulations, will be compared against results from existing studies in the field. When the models generate new predictions that have not yet been empirically tested, new laboratory studies of such predictions will be conducted; there are already several examples of new predictions that have not been confirmed by empirical test. Past and current research has related properties of connectionist models to memory for social schemas and exemplars, accessibility, heuristic- systematic and other related dual process models, stereotype learning and change, language and autobiographical memory, and flexibility of the self-concept and other knowledge representations. Planned work will continue in these areas and others including representation of attitudes, motivation and the affect-cognition interface, social interaction, and social influence. The overall goal of both training and research is to use connectionist models to generate new insights into core social psychological phenomena, incorporating social psychology within the new wave of theoretical integration that appears to be building across all of psychology through the common theoretical language of connectionist models.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH)
Type
Research Scientist Development Award - Research (K02)
Project #
2K02MH001178-06
Application #
2903263
Study Section
Social and Group Processes Review Committee (SGP)
Program Officer
Morf, Carolyn
Project Start
1999-08-01
Project End
2004-07-31
Budget Start
1999-08-01
Budget End
2000-07-31
Support Year
6
Fiscal Year
1999
Total Cost
Indirect Cost
Name
Purdue University
Department
Psychology
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
072051394
City
West Lafayette
State
IN
Country
United States
Zip Code
47907
Queller, Sarah; Smith, Eliot R (2002) Subtyping versus bookkeeping in stereotype learning and change: connectionist simulations and empirical findings. J Pers Soc Psychol 82:300-13
Mackie, D M; Devos, T; Smith, E R (2000) Intergroup emotions: explaining offensive action tendencies in an intergroup context. J Pers Soc Psychol 79:602-16
Smith, E R; Murphy, J; Coats, S (1999) Attachment to groups: theory and measurement. J Pers Soc Psychol 77:94-110
Semin, G R; Smith, E R (1999) Revisiting the past and back to the future: memory systems and the linguistic representation of social events. J Pers Soc Psychol 76:877-92
Mackie, D M; Smith, E R (1998) Intergroup relations: insights from a theoretically integrative approach. Psychol Rev 105:499-529
Smith, E R; DeCoster, J (1998) Knowledge acquisition, accessibility, and use in person perception and stereotyping: simulation with a recurrent connectionist network. J Pers Soc Psychol 74:21-35
Smith, E R (1996) What do connectionism and social psychology offer each other? J Pers Soc Psychol 70:893-912
Smith, E R; Fazio, R H; Cejka, M A (1996) Accessible attitudes influence categorization of multiply categorizable objects. J Pers Soc Psychol 71:888-98