Are connectionist models cognitive?

Toward a theory of human memory: Data structures and access processes

Starting from Marr's ideas about levels of explanation, a theory of the data structures and access processes in human memory is demonstrated on 10 tasks. Functional characteristics of human memory are captured implementation-independently. Our theory generates a multidimensional task classification subsuming existing classifications such as the distinction between tasks that are implicit versus explicit, data driven versus conceptually driven, and simple associative (two-way bindings) versus higher order (threeway bindings), providing a broad basis for new experiments. The formal language clarifies the binding problem in episodic memory, the role of input pathways in both episodic and semantic (lexical) memory, the importance of the input set in episodic memory, and the ubiquitous calculation of an intersection in theories of episodic and lexical access.

The case against neuropsychoanalysis. On fallacies underlying psychoanalysis' latest scientific trend and its negative impact on psychoanalytic discourse

The authors offer a critical examination of the claims of the proponents of the growing neuropsychoanalytic trend, that neuroscientific findings are relevant and important for the development and justification of psychoanalytic theory and practice. They bring to light some of the intuitions that have led to the popularity of the neuropsychoanalytic claims and the fallacies that underlie these claims and intuitions. They argue that it is crucial at this time to articulate the case against the neuropsychoanalytic trend because, underlying the debate over the relevance of neuroscience to psychoanalysis, there lies a struggle over the essential nature of psychoanalytic theory and practice. Relying on a biologistic perspective, whereby only what is biological is real, this new trend in effect offers a vision of psychoanalysis that limits the significance of the unique psychoanalytic concern with the understanding of meanings and the role of discourse in discerning and justifying these meanings.