Balance Scale /Cognitive Application to Distance Education/Connection in idea to original article by Margith A. Strand

1. Introduction

Although connectionist network models have become well known for their ability to simulate low level perceptual, learning, and memory phenomena, it has been unclear whetherthey would be suitable for modeling aspects of higher level psychological processes andtheir development. The recent appearance of a variety of interesting connectionist models of human development suggests some degree of applicability (Chauvin 1989; Elman, 1991;Harnad, Hanson, & Lubin, 1991; MacWhinney, Leinbach, Taraban, & McDonald, 1989;McClelland, 1989; Plunkett & Marchman, 1991; Schyns, 1991).
In addition to these new empirical results with connectionist modeling, a number of recent theoretical papers have argued that the application of connectionist models to cognitive development has fostered a return to the long neglected, but traditional concerns of developmental transition (Bates & Elman, 1993; Plunkett & Sinha, 1992; Shultz, 1991). The twin issues of structure and transition have tended to dominate developmental psychology.

Whereas structural issues concern the description and diagnosis of abilities at various stages, transition issues concern the mechanisms by which the child moves from one stage to the next. Because transition has proven to be such a difficult problem, developmental psychologists have tended to ignore it in favor of more tractable diagnostic studies of children's cognition. Likewise, cognitive modelers have typically had greater success modeling processing at various stages than with transitions between stages.

In the present paper, we report on a connectionist model of cognitive development on balance scale phenomena, emphasizing both structural and transition issues.

* Denis Mareschal is now at the Department of Experimental Psychology, University of Oxford. William Schmidt is now at the Department of Psychology, University of Western Ontario.

Authors: THOMAS R. SHULTZ, DENIS MARESCHAL,* AND WILLIAM C. SCHMIDT
Department of Psychology and McGill Cognitive Science Centre, McGill University

Title of Paper: Modeling Cognitive Development on Balance
Scale Phenomena
Google/July 22, 2010