Connectionist Cognitive Psychology: New Developments in the Series of Psychology Books

Author: Jia Linxiang
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-12-01
Features: The connection between the individualistic tendency in psychology and the natural science orientation of psychology is very clear. Natural science takes natural phenomena—the material world—as its research object. The material world is different from the psychological and spiritual worlds of humans. The material world has the characteristic of stability; natural phenomena do not change due to shifts in social and cultural contexts, nor do they differ based on the attitudes of researchers. Lightning is lightning; regardless of any society, any era, or any researcher, the nature of lightning remains unchanged. However, psychological phenomena differ. In different eras and cultural conditions, people's psychological characteristics vary. Moreover, because humans possess the characteristic of self-awareness, when facing different researchers, they may exhibit different behavioral characteristics. When psychology adopted the research model of natural science, it did not consider the differences in research subjects, treating psychological phenomena as natural phenomena for study. It attempted to control certain phenomena, exclude the influence of other conditions, and use a causal determinism model with reductionist methods to seek the determinants of psychology and behavior. As a result, the individualistic tendency that excludes cultural influence and seeks behavioral causes from the individual themselves became inevitable. Taking "psychological activity is like the brain" as a theoretical insight, methods such as structural and functional simulation are adopted. By studying isomorphism and homomorphism models of the brain, the essence of cognitive processes is revealed. In the specific research process, particular emphasis is placed on the overall activity of neural networks and the role of connection weights. In-depth research is conducted on issues such as sensation, learning, memory, language, thinking, and cognitive disorders. This book provides a detailed introduction and analysis of these topics and offers a comprehensive and objective evaluation.