connectionism
- noun
- /kəˈnɛkʃənɪzəm/
- Specialized
- In cognitive science, connectionism is often contrasted with traditional symbolic approaches to artificial intelligence.
Examples
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In general, connectionism received good press as a more "humanistic" form of AI endeavor.
Academic text (1997) -
So do you like the term connectionism to describe this kind of set of ideas?
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Rather than a reductionist approach, this paper encourages the use of connectionism in these respective sciences.
Academic text (2003) -
Indeed, Olds goes further and suggests that contemporary psychoanalysts need connectionism.
Academic text (1997) -
For one thing, connectionism presents analysts with a way to describe the ego in terms of the brain and thus enables them to forge new links to the science of biology.
Academic text (1997) -
The instructor should guide the learners through the application of a variety of learning theories, especially the connectionism theory of Thorndike and Gagne's theories of learning conditions, among others.
Academic text (2006) -
Connectionism's broad appeal, as well as its appeal to psychoanalysts, was that it proposed an artificial meat machine made up of biologically resonant components.
Academic text (1997) -
Information-processing AI had provided a context for experimental psychology to return to the consideration of inner processes; connectionism, with its language of neural pathways designed on the template of biology, opened the way for new ideas of nature as a computer and of the computer as part of nature.
Academic text (1997) -
Many scholars believe that connectionism provides a useful framework for understanding human cognition.
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The principles of connectionism can be applied to develop algorithms that mimic neural processes in the brain.
Surface Forms
Morphology
connectionism = connection (semi-transparent) = connection + ism
Formed by 'connection' + the productive suffix '-ism' meaning a doctrine or theory; the general idea is inferable but the term is technical and refers to a specialized research approach.
Etymology
The word connectionism comes from connect ('join') and the ending -ism ('theory' or 'belief'). So, think of many small parts joined together like a net: connectionism is the idea that the mind works by many connected parts, which is why it studies mental processes as networks.