We are a group of faculty and graduate students studying the application of connectionist (neural network) models to social reasoning and social behavior. We are currently working on the following models:

• A neural network model of personality and human motivation.
• A connectionist model of social evaluation, based on Cunningham’s Iterative Reprocessing model..
• A connectionist model of Cognitive Dissonance.
• An attractor model of the development and change of coherent belief systems.
• A neural network model of childhood and adult attachment behavior.

Associated Faculty

Stephen J. Read (Psychology)

Lynn C. Miller (Annenberg School and Psychology)

In addition, a number of individuals in a variety of other departments are also actively investigating connectionist models (Linguistics, Psychology (Cognitive and Clinical), Computer Science, and the Neural, Informational, and Behavioral Sciences Program (NIBS)).

Students

• Jennifer Talevich
• Philip Ehret
• Vita Droutman
• Gurveen Chopra

Hardware

3 Macintosh computers

2 HP Quad Core I7

Software

Emergent 5.10 Neural Network simulation software

Thagard’s ECHO program for parallel constraint satisfaction models