Rethinking Innateness: A Connectionist Perspective on Development

by Jeffrey L. Elman

Rethinking Innateness asks the question, "What does it really mean to say that a behavior is innate?" The authors describe a new framework in which interactions, occurring at all levels, give rise to emergent forms and behaviors. These outcomes often may be highly constrained and universal, yet are not themselves directly contained in the genes in any domain-specific way. One of the key contributions of Rethinking Innateness is a taxonomy of ways in which a behavior can be innate. These include constraints at the level of representation, architecture, and timing; typically, behaviors arise through the interaction of constraints at several of these levels.The ideas are explored through dynamic models inspired by a new kind of "developmental connectionism," a marriage of connectionist models and developmental neurobiology, forming a new theoretical framework for the study of behavioral development. While relying heavily on the conceptual and computational tools provided by connectionism, Rethinking Innateness also identifies ways in which these tools need to be enriched by closer attention to biology.

Genres: Psychology, Science, Nonfiction, Biology, Linguistics, Neuroscience, Brain

468 pages, Paperback

First published October 15, 1996

Reviews

[Lindsay · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think this book is great. It was a tough read sometimes, primarily due to the "neuro jargon." But, ultimately, this book gives a lot of insight into the connection between nature and nurture. What is truly innate? How much of our humanness is due to our environment and interactions with the environment?

[brittan · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book will always be a classic and will never let you down (when it comes to neural networks, that is).