Duality of the Mind

"...I find Sun's CLARION to be a strong and interesting exploration of the power of hybrid models to capture properties of human learning and problem solving. It is among the best and is to be highly recommended to anyone for whom computer models in this domain are in the least relevant. I find the attention to broader foundational concerns-representation, consciousness, sociality-to be refreshing and stimulating in a book with a focus on a computational model. Again, Sun is to be strongly applauded for recognizing that such issues must be addressed and cannot simply be postponed."—Contemporary Psychology APA REVIEW OF BOOKS"For decades, Cognitive Science has been grappling with the issue of how to best understand the interactions between symbolic and subsymbolic cognition. In this ambitious and wide-ranging book, [Ron] Sun boldly takes it as a starting point that our minds are dual and implements his hypothesis as a hybirid computational model that he then compares the behavior with that of human subjects exposed to implicit learning tasks. The result is a sometimes exhilarating romp through many issues central to contemporary cognitive science, including consciousness, the role of culture and embodiment in cognition, or the interactions between bottom-up and top-down processing. Whether or not one agrees with Sun's perspective, this book will challenge anyone with an interest in understanding how the mind works."—Axel CleemansUniversit‚ Libre de Bruxelles"In the past decade Ron Sun has been the foremost proponent of the new wave of hybrid architectures of cognition. By combining the insights of symbolic and connectionist approaches, hybrid cognitive systems hold the promise to break the old dogmatic stalemates and provide a full understanding of the workings of the human mind....This book is essential reading for anyone trying to keep up with the exploding and exciting new field of hybrid architectures of cognition."—Christian LebiereCarnegie Mellon University"This is cognitive science at its best: innovative, eclectic, synergistic, and, above all, liberated from the fixed dogmatic paradigms into which much of the field has settled."—Gregg OdenUniversity of Iowa

• Contents: Preface. The Essentials of Human Activities. A Theoretical Model. Current Implementations. Accounting for Human Data Qualitatively. Accounting for Human Data Quantitatively. Symbol Grounding and Situated Cognition. The Issue of Consciousness. Sociocultural Factors in Cognition. Comparisons. Conclusions.