An Introduction to Neural Networks (Hardcover)

by James A. Anderson (Author)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Choice Outstanding Academic Title, 1996.

An Introduction to Neural Networks falls into a new ecological niche for texts. Based on notes that have been class-tested for more than a decade, it is aimed at cognitive science and neuroscience students who need to understand brain function in terms of computational modeling, and at engineers who want to go beyond formal algorithms to applications and computing strategies. It is the only current text to approach networks from a broad neuroscience and cognitive science perspective, with an emphasis on the biology and psychology behind the assumptions of the models, as well as on what the models might be used for. It describes the mathematical and computational tools needed and provides an account of the author's own ideas.

Students learn how to teach arithmetic to a neural network and get a short course on linear associative memory and adaptive maps. They are introduced to the author's brain-state-in-a-box (BSB) model and are provided with some of the neurobiological background necessary for a firm grasp of the general subject.

The field now known as neural networks has split in recent years into two major groups, mirrored in the texts that are currently available: the engineers who are primarily interested in practical applications of the new adaptive, parallel computing technology, and the cognitive scientists and neuroscientists who are interested in scientific applications. As the gap between these two groups widens, Anderson notes that the academics have tended to drift off into irrelevant, often excessively abstract research while the engineers have lost contact with the source of ideas in the field. Neuroscience, he points out, provides a rich and valuable source of ideas about data representation and setting up the data representation is the major part of neural network programming. Both cognitive science and neuroscience give insights into how this can be done effectively: cognitive science suggests what to compute and neuroscience suggests how to compute it.

About the Author
James A. Anderson is Professor and Chair of the Department of Cognitive and Linguistic Sciences at Brown University.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 672 pages
• Publisher: The MIT Press (March 16, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0262011441
• ISBN-13: 978-0262011440
• Product Dimensions: 10.4 x 8.4 x 1.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.6 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,307,231 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

24 of 26 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Amazing Neural Net Introduction!, July 30, 1998

By	Joel Parker Henderson (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews

This is one of the best books I have ever read. It introduces neural networks, with a strong emphasis on biological plausibility. For example, the book compares the visual systems of simple animals with neural network feature extraction. Anderson moves effectively among evolutionary biology, cognitive science, artificial intelligence, and behavioral psychology. His insights are important, clear, and often funny as well. The book gently introduces source code for implementing the various neural networks that he describes.

8 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Fantastic Introductory Book!, May 16, 2002

By A Customer

I highly recommend this book to anyone looking to learn about neural networks. It starts with a good overview of the biological basis that will be appropriate for the engineering student. The author is witty and appropriately cynical.

18 of 25 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars Not Practical, November 13, 2004

By	Steven A. Fletcher - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: An Introduction to Neural Networks (Paperback)

There's nothing really wrong with this book - it's just not useful for someone wanting to actually program a neural network system.

I read all sorts of stuff about the nervous systems in horseshoe crabs, but I don't find myself able to do anything with neural networks. Therefore, I'm scouring the Internet to find some source code examples or a tutorial of some kind.

If you want to know miscellaneous information about neural networks, go ahead and buy the book. But if you actually want to construct neural networks, buy something else.