Behavioral and Brain Sciences

Table of Contents - 2008 - Volume 31, Issue 06  

Open Peer Commentary

Structured models of semantic cognition

Charles Kempa1 and Joshua B. Tenenbauma2

a1 Department of Psychology, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA 15213 ckemp@cmu.edu http://www.charleskemp.com

a2 Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA 02139. jbt@mit.edu http://web.mit.edu/cocosci/josh.html

Abstract

Rogers & McClelland (R&M) criticize models that rely on structured representations such as categories, taxonomic hierarchies, and schemata, but we suggest that structured models can account for many of the phenomena that they describe. Structured approaches and parallel distributed processing (PDP) approaches operate at different levels of analysis, and may ultimately be compatible, but structured models seem more likely to offer immediate insight into many of the issues that R&M discuss.

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