Connectionist simulations: the modern artificial intelligence

Abstract

During the last two decades, especially after 1986, significant developments in the field of the connectionist paradigm were planned and executed. The connectionist simulation tools have helped to better understand how mental functions are acquired, stored and, in certain cases, lost. The connectionist models are based on a parallel distributed processing (PDP). In spite of its obvious and valuable contributions, the connectionism is far from exhibiting a final solution for cognitive problems. Such a paradigm corresponds more to an explicative power than to a perfect simulation of real mental processes.