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Semantic cognition or data mining?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 December 2008

Denny Borsboom  and
Ingmar Visser
Denny Borsboom
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. d.borsboom@uva.nlhttp://users.fmg.uva.nl/dborsboom/i.visser@uva.nlhttp://users.fmg.uva.nl/ivisser/
Ingmar Visser
Affiliation:
Department of Psychology, University of Amsterdam, 1018WB Amsterdam, The Netherlands. d.borsboom@uva.nlhttp://users.fmg.uva.nl/dborsboom/i.visser@uva.nlhttp://users.fmg.uva.nl/ivisser/
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Abstract

We argue that neural networks for semantic cognition, as proposed by Rogers & McClelland (R&M), do not acquire semantics and therefore cannot be the basis for a theory of semantic cognition. The reason is that the neural networks simply perform statistical categorization procedures, and these do not require any semantics for their successful operation. We conclude that this has severe consequences for the semantic cognition views of R&M.

Information

Type
Open Peer Commentary
Information
Behavioral and Brain Sciences , Volume 31 , Issue 6 , December 2008 , pp. 714 - 715
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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