Learning: Association or computation?
The concept of association plays a fundamental role in behavioral neuroscience, while in cognitive science a correspondingly fundamental role is played by the concept of computation.
Does neural tissue associate stimuli or compute over representations? How do these contrasting frameworks account for basic learning phenomena? These fundamental empirical and theoretical issues were examined by leading researchers in a one day symposium.
Program:
8:30 Richard Foley (Dean, FAS, Rutgers)
Welcoming remarks
8:45 Robert Rescorla (U Penn)
The survival of the association
9:30 Charles R. Gallistel (UCLA and Rutgers)
Contrasting conceptual frameworks for the understanding of conditioning: Neurobiological Implications
10:15 Francis Lawrence (President, Rutgers U)
Remarks on policy
10:20 Discussion
10:30 Break for refreshments
10:45 Peter R. Killeen (Arizona State U)
Metonymic Psychology. Why Johnny can’t add, brains can’t think, and computers can’t compute
11:30 Russell M. Church (Brown U)
A Turing test of computational and association theories
12:15 Discussion
12:30 General Discussion
01:00 Break for Lunch 2:00 John E.R. Staddon (Duke U)
Time and Memory: Towards a Pacemaker-Free Theory of Interval Timing
2:45 John Gibbon and C. Malapani (Columbia U)
Separable storage and retrieval distortions in memory for time in Parkinson’s disease
3:30 Discussion
3:45 Break for refreshments
4:00 Anthony Dickinson (Univ. Cambridge, England)
Causal learning: association or computation?
4:45 Ralph Miller (SUNY Binghamton)
Associations and hat racks: Sometimes useful, but not essential
5:30 Discussion
5:45 General Discussion
6:15 Reception
7:15 Close
Organizers: Alan M. Leslie, Charles Flaherty, and Kathy Vandergoot.