Learning, action and consciousness: a hybrid approach toward modelling consciousness

✍ Scribed by Ron Sun

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1997
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 309 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0893-6080
• DOI: 10.1016/s0893-6080(97)00050-6

✦ Synopsis

This paper is an attempt at understanding the issue of consciousness through investigating its functional role, especially in learning, and through devising hybrid neural network models that (in a qualitative manner) approximate characteristics of human consciousness. In doing so, the paper examines explicit and implicit learning in a variety of psychological experiments and delineates the conscious/unconscious distinction in terms of the two types of learning and their respective products. The distinctions are captured in a two-level action-based model Clarion. Some fundamental theoretical issues are also clarified with the help of the model. Comparisons with existing models of consciousness are made to accentuate the present approach. ᭧ 1997 Elsevier Science Ltd.