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• Orientation and disorientation : illusory perception and the real world / A. David Milner and Richard T. Dyde
• Ups and downs in the visual control of action / James A. Danckert and Melvyn A. Goodale
• Mediate responses as direct evidence for intention : neuropsychology of not-to, not-now, and not-there tasks / Yves Rossetti and Laure Pisella
• Understanding intentions through imitation / Marco Iacoboni
• Simulation of action as a unifying concept for motor cognition / Marc Jeannerod
• How the human brain represents manual gestures : effects of brain damage / Angela Sirigu [and others]
• Cortical representations of human tool use / Scott H. Johnson-Frey
• Representations and neural mechanisms of sequential movements / Richard B. Ivry and Laura L. Helmuth
• Bimanual action representation : a window on human evolution / Elizabeth A. Franz
• Feedback or feedforward control : end of a dichotomy / Michel Desmurget and Scott Grafton
• Neuronal plasticity in the motor cortex of monkeys acquiring a new internal model / Camillo Padoa-Schioppa and Emilio Bizzi
• Neural mechanisms of catching : transplanting moving target information into hand interception movement / Wolfgang Kruse [and others]
• Movement and functional magnetic resonance imaging : applications in the clinical and scientific environment / M. Rotte.

Recent cognitive neuroscientific research that crosses traditional conceptual boundaries among perceptual, cognitive, and motor functions in an effort to understand intentional acts.Traditionally, neurologists, neuroscientists, and psychologists have viewed brain functions as grossly divisible into three separable components, each responsible for either perceptual, cognitive, or motor systems. The artificial boundaries of this simplification have impeded progress in understanding many phenomena, particularly intentional actions, which involve complex interactions among the three systems.This book presents a diverse range of work on action by cognitive neuroscientists who are thinking across the traditional boundaries. The topics discussed include catching moving targets, the use of tools, the acquisition of new actions, feedforward and feedback mechanisms, the flexible sequencing of individual movements, the coordination of multiple limbs, and the control of actions compromised by disease. The book also presents recent work on relatively unexplored yet fundamental issues such as how the brain formulates intentions to act and how it expresses ideas through manual gestures.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• pt. I. Technology. Robust layered control system for a mobile robot
• Robot that walks: emergent behaviors from a carefully evolved network
• Learning a distributed map representation based on navigation behaviors
• New approaches to robotics. pt. II. Philosophy. Intelligence without representation
• Planning is just a way of avoiding figuring out what to do next
• Elephants don't play chess
• Intelligence without reason.

Until the mid-1980s, AI researchers assumed that an intelligent system doing high-level reasoning was necessary for the coupling of perception and action. In this traditional model, cognition mediates between perception and plans of action. Realizing that this core AI, as it was known, was illusory, Rodney A. Brooks turned the field of AI on its head by introducing the behavior-based approach to robotics. The cornerstone of behavior-based robotics is the realization that the coupling of perception and action gives rise to all the power of intelligence and that cognition is only in the eye of an observer. Behavior-based robotics has been the basis of successful applications in entertainment, service industries, agriculture, mining, and the home. It has given rise to both autonomous mobile robots and more recent humanoid robots such as Brooks' Cog. This book represents Brooks' initial formulation of and contributions to the development of the behavior-based approach to robotics. It presents all of the key philosophical and technical ideas that put this "bottom-up" approach at the forefront of current research in not only AI but all of cognitive science.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Mechanisms of Communication
• Vocal Communication in Xenopus laevis / Darcy B. Kelley, Martha L. Tobias
• The Motor Basis of Vocal Performance in Songbirds / Roderick A. Suthers
• The Anatomy and Timing of Vocal Learning in Birds / Fernando Nottebohm
• The Dance Language of Honeybees: Recent Findings and Problems / Axel Michelsen
• Processing Species-specific Calls by Combination-sensitive Neurons in an Echolocating Bat / Jagmeet S. Kanwal
• A Cellular Basis for Reading Minds from Faces and Actions / David I. Perrett
• Neural Systems for Recognizing Emotions in Humans / Ralph Adolphs
• The Neuroendocrine Basis of Seasonal Changes in Vocal Behavior among Songbirds / Gregory F. Ball
• Testosterone, Aggression, and Communication: Ecological Bases of Endocrine Phenomena / John C. Wingfield, Jerry D. Jacobs, Kiran Soma, Donna L. Maney, Kathleen Hunt, Deborah Wisti-Peterson, Simone Meddle, Marilyn Ramenofsky, Kimberly Sullivan
• Ontogeny of Communication
• On Innateness: Are Sparrow Songs "Learned" or "Innate"? / Peter Marler
• Making Ecological Sense of Song Development by Songbirds / Donald E. Kroodsma
• Song- and Order-seective Auditory Responses Emerge in Neurons of the Songbird Anterior Forebrain during Vocal Learning / Allison J. Doupe, Michele M. Solis
• Genetics of Canary Song Learning: Innate Mechanisms and Other Neurobiological Considerations / Paul C. Mundinger
• Production, Usage, and Response in Nonhuman Primate Vocal Development / Robert M. Seyfarth, Dorothy L. Cheney.

When animals, including humans, communicate, they convey information and express their perceptions of the world. Because different organisms are able to produce and perceive different signals, the animal world contains a diversity of communication systems. Based on the approach laid out in the 1950s by Nobel laureate Nikolaas Tinbergen, this book looks at animal communication from the four perspectives of mechanisms, ontogeny, function, and phylogeny. The book's great strength is its broad comparative perspective, which enables the reader to appreciate the diversity of solutions to particular problems of signal design and perception. For example, although the neural circuitry underlying the production of acoustic signals is different in frogs, songbirds, bats, and humans, each involves a set of dedicated pathways designed to solve particular problems of communicative efficiency. Such comparative findings form the basis of a conceptual framework for understanding the mechanisms underlying communication systems and their evolution.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction / Ray Jackendoff, Paul Bloom and Karen Wynn
• Publications of John Macnamara
• Ch. 1. Language and Nationalism / Richard Kearney
• Ch. 2. Meaning and Misconceptions / Anil Gupta
• Ch. 3. On Structuralism in Mathematics / Michael Makkai
• Ch. 4. The Natural Logic of Rights and Obligations / Ray Jackendoff
• Ch. 5. Deliberation Reasons and Explanation Reasons / Storrs McCall
• Ch. 6. Truth and Its Negation: Macnamara's Analysis of the Place of Logic in a Cognitive Psychology / David R. Olson
• Ch. 7. Names of Things and Stuff: An Aristotelian Perspective / Sandeep Prasada
• Ch. 8. The Unity of Science and the Distinction among Syntax, Semantics, and Pragmatics / Steven Davis
• Ch. 9. Scientific Theories That Unconceal Being: Intentions and Conceptions in Their Genesis / Leslie Margaret Perrin McPherson
• Ch. 10. The Nature of Human Concepts: Evidence from an Unusual Source / Steven Pinker and Alan Prince.

This wide-ranging collection of essays is inspired by the memory of the cognitive psychologist John Macnamara, whose influential contributions to language and concept acquisition have provided the basis for numerous research programs. The areas covered by the essays include the foundations of language and thought, congnitive and linguistic development, and mathematical approaches to cognition.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Modelling pitch perception with adaptive resonance theory artificial neural networks / Ian Taylor & Mike Greenhough
• Development of tonal centres and abstract pitch as categorizations of pitch use / Niall Griffith
• Understanding musical sound with forward models and physical models / Michael A. Casey
• Resonance and the perception of musical meter / Edward W. Large & John F. Kolen
• Modelling musical perception : a critical view / Stephen W. Smoliar
• Reply to S.W. Smoliar's 'Modelling Musical Perception : A Critical View' / Peter Desain & Henkjan Honing
• Pitch-based streaming in auditory perception / Stephen Grossberg
• Apparent motion in music? / Robert O. Gjerdingen
• Modelling the perception of musical sequences with self-organizing neural networks / Michael P.A. Page
• Ear for melody / Bruce F. Katz
• Neural network music composition by prediction : exploring the benefits of psychoacoustic contraints and multi-scale processing / Michael C. Mozer
• Harmonizing music the Boltzmann way / Matthew I. Bellgard & C.P. Tsang
• Reduced memory representations for music / Edward W. Large, Caroline Palmer & Jordan B. Pollack
• Frankensteinian methods for evolutionary music composition / Peter M. Todd & Gregory M. Werner
• Towards automated artificial evolution for computer-generated images / Shumeet Baluja, Dean Pomerleau & Todd Jochem
• Connectionist air guitar : a dream come true / Garrison W. Cottrell.

This volume presents the most up-to-date collection of neural network models of music and creativity gathered together in one place. Chapters by leaders in the field cover new connectionist models of pitch perception, tonality, musical streaming, sequential and hierarchical melodic structure, composition, harmonization, rhythmic analysis, sound generation, and creative evolution. The collection combines journal papers on connectionist modeling, cognitive science, and music perception with new papers solicited for this volume. It also contains an extensive bibliography of related work. Contributors Shumeet Baluja, M.I. Bellgard, Michael A. Casey, Garrison W. Cottrell, Peter Desain, Robert O. Gjerdingen, Mike Greenhough, Niall Griffith, Stephen Grossberg, Henkjan Honing, Todd Jochem, Bruce F. Katz, John F. Kolen, Edward W. Large, Michael C. Mozer, Michael P.A. Page, Caroline Palmer, Jordan B. Pollack, Dean Pomerleau, Stephen W. Smoliar, Ian Taylor, Peter M. Todd, C.P. Tsang, Gregory M. Werner.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
This volume presents the most up-to-date collection of neural network models of music and creativity gathered together in one place. Chapters by leaders in the field cover new connectionist models of pitch perception, tonality, musical streaming, sequential and hierarchical melodic structure, composition, harmonization, rhythmic analysis, sound generation, and creative evolution.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. On the impossibility of a monistic account of species / by John Dupré
• 2. On the plurality of species: questioning the party line / by David L. Hull
• 3. The general lineage concept of species and the defining properties of the species category / by Kevin de Queiroz
• 4. When is a rose?: the kinds of tetrahymena / by David L. Nanney
• 5. Species as ecological mosaics / by Kim Sterelny
• 6. Homeostasis, species, and higher taxa / by Richard Boyd
• 7. Realism, essence, and kind: resuscitating species essentialism? / by robert a. wilson
• 8. squaring the circle: natural kinds with historical essences / by Paul E. Griffiths
• 9. The universal primacy of generic species in folkbiological taxonomy: implications for human biological, cultural, and scientific evolution / by Scott Atran
• 10. Species, stuff, and patterns of causation / by Frank C. Keil and Daniel C. Richardson
• 11. Species and the linnaean hierarchy / by Marc Ereshefsky
• 12. Getting rid of species? / by Brent D. Mishler.

The concept of species has played a central role in both evolutionary biology and the philosophy of biology, and has been the focus of a number of books in recent years. This book differs from other recent collections in two ways. It is more explicitly integrative and analytical, centering on issues of general significance such as pluralism and realism about species. It also draws on a broader range of disciplines and brings neglected cognitive, anthropological, and historical dimensions to philosophical debates over species.The chapters are organized around five themes: unity, integration, and pluralism; species realism; historical dimensions; cognitive underpinnings; and practical import. The contributors include prominent researchers from anthropology, botany, developmental psychology, the philosophy of biology and science, protozoology, and zoology.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction: three very general observations on psychology and its history
• Plato on learning
• Plato on truth and knowledge
• Aristotle on knowledge and understanding
• Aristotle on perception: three questions
• The Book of Genesis and psychology
• The impact of Christianity on psychology
• St. Augustine of Hippo: Christian Platonist
• St. Thomas Aquinas on individuals and concepts
• St. Thomas Aquinas and dualism
• Duns Scotus and William of Ockham: the cusp of the Middle Ages
• Thomas Hobbes: grandfather of modern psychology
• Rene Descartes: medieval man of the Renaissance
• John Locke: a no-nonsense developmental psychologist
• Gottfried Leibneiz and necessary truths
• Bishop Berkeley and the consequences of nominalism
• David Hume: Some consequences of British empiricism
• Thomas Jefferson and the Declaration of Independence
• Immanuel Kant and the foundational stance in psychology
• John Stuart Milles: a contemporary psychologist
• Charles Darwin: the Newton of biology
• Wilhelm Wundt: The founder of experimental psychology
• Franz Brentano: Intuition and the mental
• Sigmund Freud and the concept of mental health
• John B. Watson and the Behaviorists
• Some notes on the Gestalt Movement
• Extroduction.

In this lively book, John Macnamara shows how a number of important thinkers through the ages have approached problems of mental representation and the acquisition of knowledge. He discusses the relevance of these approaches to modern cognitive psychology, focusing on central themes that he believes have strongly influenced modern psychology. This is not a neutral historical survey, but a vehicle for Macnamara's compelling and provocative arguments on the relevance and worth of certain aspects of psychological and philosophical thought. The historical figures discussed are quite varied-from Plato to Thomas Jefferson to Sigmund Freud-and include numerous Christian philosophers such as Augustine and Thomas Aquinas. The book assumes no previous background in the subject matter; Macnamara often simplifies abstract concepts via homespun examples (many using his beloved dog, Freddie). This is a quirky, engaging book, as well as the last work by a highly influential figure in cognitive psychology.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface
• 1. Introduction and historical overview / by Nicholas J. Wade and Frans A.J. Verstraten
• 2. How do measures of the motion aftereffect measure up? / by Allan Pantle
• 3. Tuning of the motion aftereffect / by Peter Thompson
• 4. The retinal image, ocularity, and cyclopean vision / by Bernard Moulden, Robert Patterson and Michael Swanston
• 5. Higher-order effects / by Jody Culham [and others]
• 6. The physiologic substrate of motion aftereffects / by Michael Niedeggen and Eugene R. Wist
• 7. Theoretical models of the motion aftereffect / by George Mather and John Harris
• Epilogue.

The contributors to this volume are all active researchers who have helped to shape the modern conception of MAE. Motion perception lies at the heart of the scientific study of vision. The motion aftereffect (MAE), probably the best known phenomenon in the study of visual illusions, is the appearance of directional movement in a stationary object or scene after the viewer has been exposed to visual motion in the opposite direction. For example, after one has looked at a waterfall for a period of time, the scene beside the waterfall may appear to move upward when ones gaze is transferred to it. Although the phenomenon seems simple, research has revealed surprising complexities in the underlying mechanisms, and offered general lessons about how the brain processes visual information. In the last decade alone, more than 200 papers have been published on MAE, largely inspired by improved techniques for examining brain electrophysiology and by emerging new theories of motion perception. The contributors to this volume are all active researchers who have helped to shape the modern conception of MAE. Contributors David Alais, Stuart Anstis, Patrick Cavanagh, Jody Culham, John Harris, Michelle Kwas, Timothy Ledgeway, George Mather, Bernard Moulden, Michael Niedeggen, Shin'ya Nishida, Allan Pantle, Robert Patterson, Jane Raymond, Michael Swanston, Peter Thompson, Frans Verstraten, Michael von Grunau, Nicolas Wade, Eugene Wist.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Motion perception lies at the heart of the scientific study of vision. The motion aftereffect (MAE), probably the best-known phenomenon in the study of visual illusions, is the appearance of directional movement of a stationary object or scene after the viewer has been exposed to visual motion in the opposite direction. For example, after one has looked at a waterfall for a period of time, the scene beside the waterfall may appear to move upward when one's gaze is transferred to it. Although the phenomenon seems simple, research has revealed surprising complexities in the underlying mechanisms and offered general lessons about how the brain processes visual information. In the last decade alone, more than 200 papers have been published on MAE, largely inspired by improved techniques for examining brain electrophysiology and by emerging new theories of motion perception. The contributors to this volume are all active researchers who have helped to shape the modern conception of MAE.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

In Moths to the Flame, Gregory J.E. Rawlins took lay readers on a tour of the exciting and sometimes scary world to which compters are leading us. This new book is for those who are new to computers and want to know what is "under the hood." It shows what computers can do for us and to us. It tells the story of how we became slaves to our machines and how our machines may one day become slaves to us. Written in an accessible, anecdotal form, Slaves of the Machine presents the birth of the computer, charts its evolution, and envisions its development over the next fifty years. Each of the six chapters asks a simple question: What are computers? How do we build them? How do we talk to them? How do we program them? What can't they do? Could they think? After answering its question, each chapter views its topic in terms of the state of the art as of 1997 and into the near future. Rawlins successfully demystifies the computer-the first step away from slavery to it.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
"[H]ere's something completely different: a computer book for smart people--folks who may not know much about PC's but who don't enjoy being talked down to, either. . . . It's an elegant, thought-provoking little book, full of literary references and history". -- John Schwartz, "Washington Post" In "Moths to the Flame", Gregory J. E. Rawlins took lay readers on a tour of the exciting and sometimes scary world to which computers are leading us. This new book is for those who are new to computers and want to know what is "under the hood". It shows what computers can do for us and to us. It tells the story of how we became slaves to our machines and how our machines may one day become slaves to us. Written in an accessible, anecdotal form, "Slaves of the Machine" presents the birth of the computer, charts its evolution, and envisions its development over the next fifty years.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
In Moths to the Flame, Gregory J. E. Rawlins took lay readers on a tour of the exciting and sometimes scary world to which computers are leading us. His second book is for those who are new to computers and want to know what is "under the hood." It shows what computers can do for us and to us. Each of the six chapters asks a simple question: What are computers? How do we build them? How do we talk to them? How do we program them? What can't they do? Could they think? Written in an accessible, anecdotal form, Slaves of the Machine successfully demystifies the computer. Rawlins presents the birth of the computer, charts its evolution, and envisions its development in terms of the state of the art as of 1997 and into the future.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Introduction
• Jerome Y. Lettvin
• Walter J. Freeman
• Bernard Widrow
• Leon N. Cooper
• Jack D. Cowan
• Carver Mead
• Teuvo Kohonen
• Stephen Grossberg
• Gail Carpenter and Stephen Grossberg
• Michael A. Arbib
• James A. Anderson
• David E. Rumelhart
• Robert Hecht-Nielsen
• Terrence J. Sejnowski
• Paul J. Werbos
• Geoffrey E. Hinton
• Bart Kosko
• Glossary
• Index.

"A fascinating compilation of discussions with many of the pioneers in neurocomputing. This book will certainly help fill in the motivations and historical context surrounding many of the fundamental breakthroughs in the area." -- James L. McClelland, Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition Since World War II, a group of scientists has been attempting to understand the human nervous system and to build computer systems that emulate the brain's abilities. Many of the early workers in this field of neural networks came from cybernetics; others came from neuroscience, physics, electrical engineering, mathematics, psychology, even economics. In this collection of interviews, those who helped to shape the field share their childhood memories, their influences, how they became interested in neural networks, and what they see as its future. The subjects tell stories that have been told, referred to, whispered about, and imagined throughout the history of the field. Together, the interviews form a Rashomon-like web of reality. Some of the mythic people responsible for the foundations of modern brain theory and cybernetics, such as Norbert Wiener, Warren McCulloch, and Frank Rosenblatt, appear prominently in the recollections. The interviewees agree about some things and disagree about more. Together, they tell the story of how science is actually done, including the false starts, and the Darwinian struggle for jobs, resources, and reputation. Although some of the interviews contain technical material, there is no actual mathematics in the book. Contributors: James A. Anderson, Michael Arbib, Gail Carpenter, Leon Cooper, Jack Cowan, Walter Freeman, Stephen Grossberg, Robert Hecht-Neilsen, Geoffrey Hinton, Teuvo Kohonen, Bart Kosko, Jerome Lettvin, Carver Mead, David Rumelhart, Terry Sejnowski, Paul Werbos, Bernard Widrow.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Predictive timing under temporal uncertainty: the time derivative model of the conditioned response / by John W. Moore, June-Seek Choi and Darlene H. Brunzell
• 2. Sequencing and timing operations of the basal ganglia / by Deborah L. Harrington and Kathleen Y. Haaland
• 3. Interresponse intervals in continuation tapping / by Charles E. Collyer and Russell M. Church
• 4. Touching surfaces for control, not support / by John J. Jeka
• 5. The perception of segmentation in sequences: local information provides the building blocks for global structure / by Steven M. Boker and Michael Kubovy
• 6. Musical motion in perception and performance / by Bruno H. Repp
• 7. Concurrent processing during sequenced finger tapping / by Heather Jane Barnes
• 8. Memory mixing in duration bisection / by Trevor B. Penney [and others]
• 9. The regulation of contact in rhythmic tapping / by Jonathan Vaughan, Tiffany R. Mattson and David A. Rosenbaum
• 10. Broadcast theory of timing / by David A. Rosenbaum
• 11. Dynamics of human intersegmental coordination: theory and research / by Polemnia G. Amazeen, Eric L. Amazeen and Michael T. Turvey
• 12. Constraints in the emergence of preferred locomotory patterns / by Kenneth G. Holt
• 13. A dynamical model of the coupling between posture and gait / by Bruce A. Kay and William H, Warren, Jr.
• 14. Dynamics of human gait transitions / by Frederick J. Diedrich and William H. Warren, Jr.
• 15. A computational model for repetitive motion / by Kjeldy A. Haugsjaa [and others].

This volume presents cutting-edge research on the production, perception, and memory of timed events. Athletes and musicians demonstrate the levels to which humans can ascend in the timing of behavior. But even common actions, such as opening a door or bringing a cup to one's lips, reveal how we organize our behavior temporally. When there is damage to the nervous system and the ability to time behavior breaks down, we become aware of how many things must go right for timing not to go terribly wrong. In recent years, there has been a considerable growth of interest among cognitive and brain scientists in the timing aspects of human behavior. This volume presents cutting-edge research on the production, perception, and memory of timed events. Empirical chapters discuss a variety of tasks ranging from locomotion to finger-tapping. Theoretical chapters provide quantitative models for topics as diverse as eyeblink conditioning and posture during walking. Other chapters discuss the neuroanatomical bases of timing behavior. Contributors: Lorraine G. Allan, Eric L. Amazeen, Polemnia G. Amazeen, Heather Jane Barnes, Steven Boker, Darlene H. Brunzell, June-Seek Choi, Russell M. Church, Charles E. Collyer, Christopher Connolly, Frederick J. Diedrich, John Gibbon, Roderic Grupen, Kathleen Y. Haaland, Deborah L. Harrington, Kjeldy Haugsjaa, Kenneth G. Holt, John J. Jeka, Bruce A. Kay, Michael Kubovy, Tiffany Mattson, Warren Meck, John W. Moore, Trevor Penney, Bruno H. Repp, David A. Rosenbaum, Kamal Souccar, Michael T. Turvey, Jonathan Vaughan, William H. Warren, Jr.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• The Faces of Pluralism
• The Problem
• Faces of Absolutism
• The Move to Pluralism
• Metaphysical Pluralism
• Facts and Content
• Three Objections
• Understanding Conceptual Schemes
• Three Models
• The Kantian Model
• The Quinean Model
• The Wittgensteinian Model
• The Very Idea
• Extending Our Worldview
• Concepts: Two Pictures
• Conceptual Fluidity and Family Resemblance
• Conceptual Fluidity and Minimal Concepts
• Concepts and Change
• The Nature of Existence
• Dilemmas Confronted
• Objects and Existence
• Dilemmas Resolved
• The Idealism Objection
• The Currents of Truth
• What Is Realism about Truth?
• Antirealism about Truth: Epistemic Theories
• Antirealism about Truth: Deflationary Theories
• The Correspondence Theory and Pluralism
• Minimal Realism about Truth
• Relative Truth
• The True and the Real
• Relativism, Inconsistency, and Self-Reference
• On Stepping Outside of My Own Skin
• Evaluating Schemes
• Facing the Noumena
• The Purpose of Metaphysics.

A Choice Outstanding Academic Title for 1999 Academic debates about pluralism and truth have become increasingly polarized in recent years. One side embraces extreme relativism, deeming any talk of objective truth as philosophically naive. The opposition, frequently arguing that any sort of relativism leads to nihilism, insists on an objective notion of truth according to which there is only one true story of the world. Both sides agree that there is no middle path. In Truth in Context, Michael Lynch argues that there is a middle path, one where metaphysical pluralism is consistent with a robust realism about truth. Drawing on the work of Hilary Putnam, W.V.O. Quine, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, among others, Lynch develops an original version of metaphysical pluralism, which he calls relativistic Kantianism. He argues that one can take facts and propositions as relative without implying that our ordinary concept of truth is a relative, epistemic, or "soft" concept. The truths may be relative, but our concept of truth need not be.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Academic debates about pluralism and truth have become increasingly polarized in recent years. In Truth in Context, Michael Lynch argues that there is a middle path, one where metaphysical pluralism is consistent with a robust realism about truth. Drawing on the work of Hilary Putnam, W.V.O. Quine, and Ludwig Wittgenstein, among others, Lynch develops an original version of metaphysical pluralism that he calls relativistic Kantianism. He argues that one can take facts and propositions as relative without this entailing that our ordinary concept of truth is a relative, epistemic, or "soft" concept. The truths may be relative, but our concept of truth need not be.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Molecular engineering / by BC Crandall
• 2. In-vivo nanoscope and the "two-week revolution" / by Ted Kaheler
• 3. Cosmetic nanosurgery / by Richard Crawford
• 4. Diamond teeth / by Edward M. Reifman
• 5. Early applications / by Harry Chesley
• 6. The companion : a very personal computer / by John Papiewski
• 7. Trivial (uses of) nanotechnology / by H. Keith Henson
• 8. Nanotech hobbies / by Tom McKendree
• 9. Phased array optics / by Brian Wowk
• 10. Utility fog : the stuff that dreams are made of / by J. Storrs Hall.

Advances in physics, molecular biology, and computer science are converging on the capacity to control, with molecular precision, the structure and function of matter. These twenty original contributions provide the first broad-based multidisciplinary definition and examination of the revolutionary new discipline of molecular engineering, or nanotechnology. They address both the promise as well as the economic, environmental, and cultural challenges of this emerging atomic-scale technology.Leaders in their field describe current technologies that feed into nanotechnology - atomic imaging and positioning, protein engineering, and the de novo, design and synthesis of self-assembling molecular structures. They present development strategies for coordinating recent work in chemistry, biotechnology, and scanning-probe microscopy in order to successfully design and engineer molecular systems. They also explore advances in molecular and quantum electronics as well as reversible computational systems and the fundamental physical constraints on computation. Additional chapters discuss research efforts in Japan and present the prospects of nanotechnology as seen from the perspective of a microtechnologist.The final section looks at the implications of success, including the prospects of enormous computational power and the radical consequences of molecular mechanical systems in the fields of medicine and life extension.Contributors Robert Birge. Federico Capasso. BC Crandall. K. Eric Drexler. Gregory Fahy. Richard Feynman. John Foster. Tracy Handel. Bill Joy. Arthur Kantrowitz. Joseph Mallon. Norman Margolus. Ralph Merkle. Lester Milbrath. Gordon Tullock. Hiroyuki Sasabe. Michael Ward.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Modern technology is becoming molecularly precise. Nanotechnology, machines as small as DNA. This capacity to manipulate matter - to "programme" matter - with atomic precision will utterly change the economic, ecological and cultural fabric of our lives. This book, which is accessible to a broad audience while providing references to the technical literature, presents a wide range of potential applications of this new material technology. The first chapter introduces the basic concepts of molecular engineering and demonstrates that several mutually reinforcing trends in current research are leading directly into a world of surprisingly powerful molecular machines. Nine original essays on specific applications follow. The first section presents applications of nanotechnology that interact directly with the molecular systems of the human body. The second presents applications that function, for the most part, outside the body. The final section details the mechanisms of a universal human-machine interface and the operation of an extremely high resolution display system.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Mechanisms of mind
• the nature of mind and the mind-body problem
• animal minds
• symbolic AI
• the first AI debate
• connectionism
• the second AI debate
• evolution, natural and artificial
• artificial life
• multiplicity of mind
• what do I do now?
• what's out there?
• remembering and creating
• representation and the third AI debate
• into the future
• an emerging new paradigm of mind?.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Recent decades have produced a blossoming of research in artificial systems that exhibit important properties of mind. But what exactly is this dramatic new work and how does it change the way we think about the mind, or even about who or what has mind?Stan Franklin is the perfect tour guide through the contemporary interdisciplinary matrix of artificial intelligence, cognitive science, cognitive neuroscience, artificial neural networks, artificial life, and robotics that is producing a new paradigm of mind. Leisurely and informal, but always informed, his tour touches on all of the major facets of mechanisms of mind.Along the way, Franklin makes the case for a perspective that rejects a rigid distinction between mind and non-mind in favor of a continuum from less to more mind, and for the role of mind as a control structure with the essential task of choosing the next action. Selected stops include the best of the work in these different fields, with the key concepts and results explained in just enough detail to allow readers to decide for themselves why the work is significant.Major attractions include animal minds, Allan Newell's SOAR, the three Artificial Intelligence debates, John Holland's genetic algorithms, Wilson's Animat, Brooks' subsumption architecture, Jackson's pandemonium theory, Ornstein's multimind, Marvin Minsky's society of mind, Pattie Maes's behavior networks, Gerald Edelman's neural Darwinism, Drescher's schema mechanisms, Pentti Kanerva's sparse distributed memory, Douglas Hofstadter and Melanie Mitchell's Copycat, and Agre and Chapman's deictic representations. A Bradford Book.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Recent decades have produced a blossoming of research in artificial systems that exhibit important properties of mind. But what exactly is this dramatic new work and how does it change the way we think about the mind, or even about who or what has mind?
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part 1 Introduction: what are aspectual classes?
• controlling the flow of information - filters, plugs and holes
• situated reasoning about time. Part 2 The aspectual verbs: the linguistic data
• negation and duality - the basic tools
• monotonicity properties
• the aspectual cube. Part 3 Dynamic aspect trees: aspect as control structure
• DATs for texts
• reasoning with DATs - chronoscopes
• DATs - their syntax and semantics. Part 4 States, generic information and constraints: transient states
• progressive and perfect states
• generic information
• conditionals and temporal quantification. Part 5 Perspectives: perspectival coherence and chronoscopes
• perspectival refinement
• perspectival binding
• scenes and scenarios. Part 6 A fragment of English: syntax and lexicon
• DAT rules
• semantics
• further issues. Part 7 Epilogue: cognition and semantic representation
• referring with parameters
• naturalized semantic realism and universal grammar.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Alice ter Meulen integrates current research in natural language semantics, with detailed analyses of English discourse, and logical tools from a variety of sources into an information theory that provides the foundation for computational systems to reason about change and the flow of time.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
This work integrates current research in natural language semantics with detailed analyses of English discourse and logical tools from a variety of sources into an information theory that provides the foundation for computational systems to reason about change and the flow of time. The topic of temporal meaning in texts has received considerable attention in recent years from scholars in linguistics, logical semantics, cognitive science, and artificial intelligence. This book offers a systematic and detailed account of how we use temporal information contained in a text or in discourse to reason about the flow of time, inferring the order in which events happened when this is not explicitly stated. A new representational toolkit is designed to formalize an appropriately context-dependent notion of situated inference. Dynamic Aspect Trees representing temporal dependencies constitute a dynamic temporal logic that clarifies what follows when from the information given in an ordinary English text. The text makes use of some of the fundamental assumptions of Situation Semantics and incorporates the dynamic methodology embodied in Discourse Representation Theory and in other dynamic logics into its temporal logic. The result is a computational inference system that can be applied across the board to fragments of natural languages.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. The evidence
• 2. What computers do
• 3. The productivity paradox
• 4. Excuses
• 5. Reasons.

Despite enormous investments in computers since the 1970s, productivity in the very service industries at which they were aimed virtually stagnated everywhere in the world. If computers are not making businesses, organizations, or countries more productive, then why are we spending so much time and money on them? Cutting through a raft of technical data, Thomas Landauer explains and illustrates why computers are in trouble and why massive outlays for computing since 1973 have not resulted in comparable productivity payoffs. Citing some of his own successful research programs, as well as many others, Landauer offers solutions to the problems he describes. While acknowledging that mismanagement, organizational barriers, learning curves, and hardware and software incompatibilities can play a part in the productivity paradox, Landauer targets individual utility and usability as the main culprits. He marshals evidence that computers rarely improve the efficiency of the information work they are designed for because they are too hard to use and do too little that is sufficiently useful. Their many features, designed to make them more marketable, merely increase cost and complexity. Landauer proposes that emerging techniques for user-centered development can turn the situation around. Through task analysis, iterative design, trial use and evaluation, computer systems can be made into powerful tools for the service economy. Landauer estimates that the application of these methods would make computers have the same enormous impact on productivity and standard of living that were the historical results of technological advances in energy use (the steam engine, electric motors), automation in textiles and other manufacture, and in agriculture. The book presents evidence for this claim, and for a huge benefit-to-cost ratio for user-centered design activities backed by descriptions of how to do these necessary things, of promising applications for better computer software designs in business, and of the relation of user-centered design to business process re-engineering, quality and management.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
Cutting through a raft of technical data, Thomas Landauer explains and illustrates why computers are in trouble and why massive outlays for computing since 1973 have not resulted in comparable productivity payoffs. He marshals overwhelming evidence that computers rarely improve the efficiency of the information work they are designed for because they are too hard to use and do too little that is sufficiently useful. Landauer proposes that emerging techniques for user-centered development can turn the situation around - through task analysis, iterative design, trial use, and evaluation, computer systems can be made into powerful tools for the service economy.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Why Investigate Metacognition?, T.0. Nelson and L. Narens
• Frustrated Feelings of Imminent Recall - On the Tip of the Tongue, S.M. Smith
• A New Look at Feeling of Knowing: Its Metacognitive Role in Regulating Question Answering, A.C. Miner and L.M. Reder
• Subthreshold Priming and Memory Monitoring, L. Narens, K.A. Jameson and V. A. Lee
• Methodological Problems and Pitfalls in the Study of Human Metacognition, B.L. Schwartz and J. Metcalfe
• Memory's Knowledge of its Own Knowledge - The Accessibility Account of the Feeling of Knowing, A. Koriat
• A Computational Modelling Approach to Novelty Monitoring, Metacognition, and Frontal Lobe Dysfunction, J. Metcalfe
• Viewing Eyewitness Research from a Metacognitive Perspective, K. Weingardt, R.J. Leonesio and E.F. Loftus
• Memory and Metamemory Considerations in the Training of Human Beings, R.A. Bjork
• The Role of Metacognition in Problem-Solving, J.E. Davidson, R. Deuser and R.J. Sternberg
• Metacognitive Development in Adulthood and Old Age, C. Hertzog and R.A. Dixon
• The Neuropsychology of Metacognition, A.P. Shimamura.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

"This volume provides the reader with an interesting and accessible summary of the latest work in a field (metacognition) that has only recently re-emerged as a major focus of research interest. Researchers seeking an overview and teachers wanting a source text to update their lectures will find this a useful read." -- Timothy J. Perfect, "Contemporary Psychology" Metacognition offers an up-to-date compendium of major scientific issues involved in metacognition. The twelve original contributions provide a concise statement of theoretical and empirical research on self-reflective processes or knowing about what we know. Self-reflective processes are often thought to be central to what we mean by consciousness and the personal self. Without such processes, one would presumably respond to stimuli in an automatized and environmentally bound manner -- that is, without the characteristic patterns of behavior and introspection that are manifested as plans, strategies, reflections, self-control, self-monitoring, and intelligence. Contents: "Why Investigate Metacognition?" Thomas O. Nelson, .
(source: Nielsen Book Data)
This text offers an up-to-date compendium of major scientific issues involved in metacognition. The 12 original contributions provide a concise statement of theoretical and empirical research on self-reflective processes, or knowing about what we know. Self-reflective processes are often thought to be central to what we mean by consciousness and the personal self. Without such processes, one would presumably respond to stimuli in an automatized and environmentally bound manner - that is, without the characteristic pattems of behavior and introspection that are manifested as plans, strategies, reflections, self-control, self-monitoring and intelligence.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Preface
• 1. Introduction: The Problem
• 2. A Cognitivist Theory of Music Perception
• 3. Does Music Mean What It Cannot Say?
• 4. A Psychology of Musical Nuance
• 5. The Ineffability of Musical Nuance
• 6. Naturalizing Nelson Goodman
• 7. Qualms About Quining Qualia
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index.

The first cognitivist theory of the nature of ineffable, or verbally inexpressible, musical knowledge. Taking a novel approach to a longstanding problem in the philosophy of art, Diana Raffman provides the first cognitivist theory of the nature of ineffable, or verbally inexpressible, musical knowledge. In the process she also sheds light on central issues in the theory of mind. Raffman invokes recent theory in linguistics and cognitive psychology to provide an account of the content and etiology of musical knowledge that "can not be put into words." Within the framework of Lerdahl and Jackendoff's generative theory of music perception, she isolates three kinds of ineffability attending our conscious knowledge of music-access, feeling, and nuance ineffability-and shows how these arise. Raffman makes a detailed comparison of linguistic and musical understanding, culminating in an attack on the traditional idea that human emotions constitute the meaning or semantic content of music. She compares her account of musical ineffability to several traditional approaches to the problem, particularly those of Nelson Goodman and Stanley Cavell. In the concluding chapter, Raffman explores a significant obstacle that her theory poses to Daniel Dennett's propositional theory of consciousness.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• 1. Introduction and important definitions
• 2. Representation issues
• 3. Perceptron learning and the pocket algorithm
• 4. Winner-take-all groups or linear machines
• 5. Autoassociators and one-shot learning
• 6. Mean squared error (MSE) algorithms
• 7. Unsupervised learning
• 8. The distributed method and radial basis functions
• 9. Computational learning theory and the BRD algorithm
• 10. Constructive algorithms
• 11. Backpropagation
• 12. Backpropagation : variations and applications
• 13. Simulated annealing and boltzmann machines
• 14. Expert systems and neural networks
• 15. Details of the MACIE system
• 16. Noise, redundancy, fault detection, and bayesian decision theory
• 17. Extracting rules from networks.

Neural Network Learning and Expert Systems is the first book to present a unified and in-depth development of neural network learning algorithms and neural network expert systems. Especially suitable for students and researchers in computer science, engineering, and psychology, this text and reference provides a systematic development of neural network learning algorithms from a computational perspective, coupled with an extensive exploration of neural network expert systems which shows how the power of neural network learning can be harnessed to generate expert systems automatically. Features include a comprehensive treatment of the standard learning algorithms (with many proofs), along with much original research on algorithms and expert systems. Additional chapters explore constructive algorithms, introduce computational learning theory, and focus on expert system applications to noisy and redundant problems. For students there is a large collection of exercises, as well as a series of programming projects that lead to an extensive neural network software package. All of the neural network models examined can be implemented using standard programming languages on a microcomputer.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)

• Part 1 Constraint logics for linguistic information: the structure of grammatical information
• the PATR formalism
• idealizations of the constraint-based view
• constraint-based computer language description
• history of constraint-based formalisms
• the structure of constraint-based formalisms
• appropriate logics for constraint-based formalisms
• properties of appropriate constraint-logic models
• operations on models. Part 2 Grammars and parsing: defining constraint-based formalisms
• grammar interpretation
• the abstract parsing algorithm
• auxiliary notions for item semantics
• a correctness proof for the algorithm
• instances of the abstract algorithm. Part 3 A compendium of model classes: finite-tree models
• infinite-tree models
• eqtree models
• graph models. Part 4 Parsing as type inference: natural and computer languages
• a difference in semantics
• constraint-based computer-language formalisms.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Constraint-based theories of grammar and grammar formalisms are an area of research in computational linguistics. "Constraint-Based Grammar Formalisms" provides a mathematical and computational basis for this important area. It introduces new applications to both natural and computer languages and brings together Stuart Shieber's many contributions that have been at the core of developments ranging from the discovery of improved explanations of linguistic phenomena such as binding and coordination to the detailed mathematical analysis of constraint-solving and parsing in a variety of grammar formalisms. This examination of the theoretical and computational foundations of constraint-based grammars and applications to natural-language analysis is unique in several respects. Shieber's theoretical framework may be applied to a whole class of formalisms with properties that make it possible to define a general parsing algorithm for all members of the class, with results that provide essential guidance to the implementer of constraint-based language processing systems. Shieber also brings out new connections between grammatical categories and data types, and between constraint-based natural-language analysis and type inference in computer languages. These connections should be of increasing interest both to computational and theoretical linguists and to computer scientists.
(source: Nielsen Book Data)