RENT TEXTBOOKS

How to Build a Brain : A Neural Architecture for Biological Cognition

ISBN: 9780199794546 | 0199794545

Format: Hardcover
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Pub. Date: 6/13/2013

Why Rent from Knetbooks?

Because Knetbooks knows college students. Our rental program is designed to save you time and money. Whether you need a textbook for a semester, quarter or even a summer session, we have an option for you. Simply select a rental period, enter your information and your book will be on its way!

Top 5 reasons to order all your textbooks from Knetbooks:

We have the lowest prices on thousands of popular textbooks
Free shipping both ways on ALL orders
Most orders ship within 48 hours
Need your book longer than expected? Extending your rental is simple
Our customer support team is always here to help

Summary

In the proposed book, Chris Eliasmith presents a new approach to understanding the neural implementation of cognition in a way that is centrally driven by biological considerations. He calls the general architecture that results from the application of this approach the Semantic Pointer Architecture (SPA), based on the Semantic Pointer Hypothesis. According to this hypothesis, higher-level cognitive functions in biological systems are made possible by semantic pointers. Thesepointers are neural representations that carry partial semantic conten... MOREt and can be built up into the complex representational structures necessary to support cognition. The SPA architecture demonstrates how neural systems generate, compose, and control the flow of semantics pointers. Eliasmith describes indetail the theory and empirical evidence supporting the SPA, and presents several examples of its application to cognitive modeling, covering the generation of semantic pointers from visual data, the application of semantic pointers for motor control, and most important, the use of semantic pointers for representation of language-like structures, cognitive control, syntactic generalization, learning of new cognitive strategies, and language-based reasoning. He agues that the SPA provides analternative to the dominant paradigms in cognitive science, including symbolicism, connectionism, and dynamicism.

One goal of researchers in neuroscience, psychology, and artificial intelligence is to build theoretical models that are able to explain the flexibility and adaptiveness of biological systems. How to build a brain provides a detailed guided exploration of a new cognitive architecture that takes biological detail seriously, while addressing cognitive phenomena. The Semantic Pointer Architecture (SPA) introduced in this book provides a set of tools for constructing a wide range of biologically constrained perceptual, cognitive, and motor models. Examples of such models are provided, and they are shown to explain a wide range of data including single cell recordings, neural population activity, reaction times, error rates, choice behavior, and fMRI signals. Each of these models introduces a major feature of biological cognition addressed in the book, including semantics, syntax, control, learning, and memory. These models are not introduced as independent considerations of brain function, but instead integrated to give rise to what is currently the world's largest functional brain model. The last half of this book compares the Semantic Pointer Architecture with the current state-of-the-art, addressing issues of theory construction in the behavioral sciences, semantic compositionality, and scalability, among other considerations. The book concludes with a discussion of conceptual challenges raised by this architecture, and identifies several outstanding challenges for this, and other, cognitive architectures. Along the way, the book considers neural coding, concept representation, neural dynamics, working memory, neuroanatomy, reinforcement learning, and spike-timing dependent plasticity. The book includes 8 detailed, hands-on tutorials exploiting the free Nengo neural simulation environment, providing practical experience with the concepts and models presented throughout.

Chris Eliasmith presents a new approach to understanding the neural implementation of cognition in a way that is centrally driven by biological considerations. According to the Semantic Pointer Hypothesis, higher-level cognitive functions in biological systems are made possible by semantic pointers.

Please wait while this item is added to your cart...