Connectionist Dissociations, Confounding Factors and Modularity

Double dissociation, modularity, and distributed organization

Miiller argues that double dissociations do not imply underlying modularity of the cognitive system, citing neural networks as examples of fully distributed systems that can give rise to double dissociations. We challenge this claim, noting that such double dissociations typically do not "scale-up," and that even some single dissociations can be difficult to account for in a distributed system....

Neuropsychological Dissociations 1 Running Head: MEMORY SYSTEMS Neuropsychological Dissociations between Priming and Recognition: A Single-System Connectionist Account

Double dissociation without modularity: evidence from connectionist neuropsychology.

Many theorists assume that the cognitive system is composed of a collection of encapsulated processing components or modules, each dedicated to performing a particular cognitive function. On this view, selective impairments of cognitive tasks following brain damage, as evidenced by double dissociations, are naturally interpreted in terms of the loss of particular processing components. By contr...

Do Modular Products Lead to Modular Organizations?

The tacit assumption that increased product modularity is associated with advantageous increases in organizational modularity underlies much of the literature on modularity. Previous empirical investigations of this assumption, few in number, have faced numerous confounding factors and generated conflicting results. I build a causal model for the relationship between product and organizational ...

Discussion Interpreting Double Dissociations in Connectionist Networks

A common motivation for studying the cognitive impairments of brain-damaged patients is to determine the “functional architecture” of the cognitive system. But what constitutes a functional architecture? This question used to have a straightforward answer: a set of discrete components with communication pathways among them, with each component assigned a specific function or type of representat...