connectionism
nounEtymology
Etymology tree English connection Proto-Indo-European *-id- Proto-Indo-European *-yéti Proto-Indo-European *-idyéti Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō) Proto-Indo-European *-mos Proto-Indo-European *-mós Ancient Greek -μός (-mós) Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der. English -ism English connectionism From connection + -ism.
1
Any of several fields of psychology that model brain processes in terms of interconnected networks.
Cognitive science
- What accounts for the cool reaction to the emergence of connectionism in the 1980s on the part of people who study language for a living? […] It is clear that many linguists view connectionism as a revival of the radical empiricist approach that dominated the dark ages in psychology—the behaviourist era.1992, Steven Davis, Connectionism: Theory and Practice, Oxford University Press, →ISBN, page 84:
- [Jerry] Fodor was a bitter opponent of connectionism, arguing that there are key features of our mental lives that it cannot explain. In particular, it cannot explain the fact that many of our cognitive capacities are systematically related to one another.2017 December 6, Mark Cain, “Jerry Fodor obituary”, in The Guardian, →ISSN:
- Related terms
- connectionist