Sticking to the manifesto

Abstract

The commentators have raised some interesting issues but none question the viability of a localist approach to connectionist modelling. Once localist models are properly defined they can be seen to exhibit many properties relevant to the modelling of both psychological and brain function. They can be used to implement exemplar models, prototype models and models of sequence memory and they form a foundation upon which symbolic models can be constructed. Localist models are insensitive to interference and have learning rules that are biologically plausible. They have more explanatory value than their distributed counterparts and they relate transparently to a number of classic mathematical models of behaviour.