James A. Anderson (cognitive scientist)

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For other people with the same name, see James Anderson (disambiguation).

James (Jim) A. Anderson (born 1940 in Detroit, Michigan) is a Professor of Cognitive Science and Brain Science at Brown University. His multi-disciplinary background includes expertise in psychology, biology, physics, neuroscience and computer science. Anderson received his Ph.D. from MIT in 1967.[1]

Anderson's research on applications of neural networks have been instrumental to the field of cognitive science as well as numerous business applications. His neural networks have been applied to models of human concept formation, decision making, speech perception, and models of vision.

James A. Anderson led the "Ersatz Brain" Project at Brown University, which aimed to build a brain-like computing system inspired by how mammal’s brains work.[2] He worked with Texas Instruments on radar signal classification, using neural networks to separate complex radar signals. This project was supported by the Office of Naval Research and the National Science Foundation.[3]

Between 1992 and 1998, Anderson was **chair of the Department of Cognitive, Linguistic, and Psychological Sciences at Brown University, managing research and academic programs in cognitive science.[4] He also studied basic questions about cognition, such as why humans have relatively few thoughts even though the brain has so many neurons, showing that his research goes beyond neural networks.[5]

Anderson co-edited "Neurocomputing 2: Directions for Research" (MIT Press, 1990), helping guide early research in neural networks and computational neuroscience around the world.[6]

Business

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Anderson's work has spawned numerous companies. Most notably, Anderson was one of the founders of Simpli, which is now owned by ValueClick. Anderson, along with Andrew Duchon, Jeff Stibel, Steve P. Reiss, George A. Miller, Paul Allopenna, John Santini, Carl Dunham, and a number of other Brown University colleagues, created a search engine based on the work of Miller's WordNet and Anderson's neural networks.[7] James A. Anderson and his research group at Brown University developed neural network models designed to explain human thinking processes such as memory, perception, and decision making. According to Anderson, he studies “brain-like computation and neural networks,” which simplify how real brains work.[8] The science was applied broadly to numerous technology and business applications, most notably Internet search and advertising. Anderson's neural networks were used to spread across a WordNet knowledgebase and disambiguate ambiguous search terms. As an example, the neural networks would take user input, such as a search keyword (Java), disambiguate the term (Java, in the sense of Coffee) and then expand the search term to create a more complete weighted search function (i.e., Java, coffee, Joe, starbucks). He and his colleagues later applied these models to real-world problems, including radar signal categorization and word-sense disambiguation. These projects represented some of the first efforts to connect cognitive science research with engineering applications.[9]

Beyond his company, Anderson’s books and research papers also influenced how engineers and data scientists used neural networks. His textbook **Introduction to Neural Networks** (MIT Press, 1995) helped make these methods more accessible to people outside academic psychology.[10] His work has also been widely read and cited by other researchers, which shows an ongoing influence in areas such as search engine, AI systems, and cognitive computing tools.[11]

Sample publications

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  1. Anderson, J. A. and Rosenfeld, E. (1998), Talking Nets: An Oral History of Neural Network Research. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1998, Paperback edition, 2000.
  2. Anderson, J. A. (1995), An Introduction to Neural Networks, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
  3. Anderson, J. A., Spoehr, K. T. and Bennett, D.J. (1994), A study in numerical perversity: Teaching arithmetic to a neural network, Neural Networks for Knowledge Representation and Inference, D.S. Levine and M. Aparicio (Eds.), Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.
  4. Anderson, J. A. (1993), The BSB Model: A simple nonlinear autoassociative neural network, M. Hassoun (Ed.), Associative Neural Memories, New York, NY: Oxford U. Press.
  5. Anderson, J.A., Pellionisz, A. and Rosenfeld, E. (Eds.)(1990), Neurocomputing 2: Directions for Research. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990.
  6. Anderson, J.A. and Rosenfeld, E. (Eds.)(1988), Neurocomputing: Foundations of Research. Cambridge, MIT Press, 1988.
  7. Anderson, J.A. and Hinton, G.E. (1981), Parallel Models for Associative Memory, Hillsdale, New Jersey: Erlbaum Associates, 1981. Revised Edition, 1989.

References

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  1. ^ Anderson, James A. "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Researchers @ Brown. Brown University. Retrieved 13 June 2022.
  2. ^ “Ersatz Brain Project – ideas.repec.org.” Available at: https://ideas.repec.org/a/igg/jcini0/v6y2012i4p22-53.html
  3. ^ “Radar Signal Classification with Neural Networks – NASA Technical Reports Server.” Available at: https://ntrs.nasa.gov/api/citations/19910012469/downloads/19910012469.pdf
  4. ^ “James A. Anderson – Brown University Profile – Copsy Brown.” Available at: https://copsy.brown.edu/people/james-anderson
  5. ^ “Fundamental Cognition Research – Springer.” Available at: https://link.springer.com/article/10.3758/BF03200569
  6. ^ “Neurocomputing 2: Directions for Research (MIT Press, 1990) – Vivo Brown CV.” Available at: https://vivo.brown.edu/docs/j/jaanders_cv.pdf?dt=541115106
  7. ^ Princeton in the News Nobel Prize-winning physicist Archived 2014-08-10 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ^ “Neural-Network Models at Brown University – Researchers@Brown.” Quote: “I study brain-like computation … neural networks … simplifications of the complexities of real brains.” Available at: https://vivo.brown.edu/display/jaanders?utm_source=chatgpt.com
  9. ^ “Radar Signal Categorisation and Word-Sense Disambiguation – Researchers@Brown.” Quote: “Applied a simple neural-network model ‘to the problem of understanding a complex radar environment.’” Available at: https://vivo.brown.edu/display/jaanders?utm_source=chatgpt.com
  10. ^ “Textbooks and Applied Neural-Network Publications – Anderson CV, including Introduction to Neural Networks, MIT Press, 1995.” Available at: https://vivo.brown.edu/docs/j/jaanders_cv.pdf?dt=541115106&utm_source=chatgpt.com
  11. ^ “Academic Citation Metrics – ResearchGate profile.” Quote: “Publications 82 … reads 6,362 …” Available at: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/James-Anderson-62?utm_source=chatgpt.com
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