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10 Dec Measuring Knowledge

Measuring Knowledge

Sometimes you need to know about your knowledge. When you’re in the middle of trying to build a system that knows stuff, you may ask, how much does the system know after this training or learning cycle as a percent of the total knowable amount? When we test students in their learning cycles, we use a […]

26 Nov Planning and Scheming

Paint a Brain

Select a Knowledge Representation (KR) Scheme In prior posts I have been describing the steps of building knowledge systems. A major part of Step 3: Task 1 is defining how to store knowledge – selecting a scheme. Giarratano and Riley (1989) suggest making the selection of a scheme, such as rules, frames or logic, dependent upon […]

26 Apr Continuity of Learning

Language in Head

Production and Comprehension We know that comprehension and language production occur in different areas of the brain and occupy opposite ends of the continuum in the communicative model. The relative independence of the production and comprehension centers suggests one of three possibilities: Syntactic and lexical data are replicated in both the production and comprehension centers of […]

28 Feb Sense-Perception and Memory

Hard Disk Drive

I Recall… Since we have been discussing learning in the past few posts, it seems appropriate to talk about memory here as well. Of course, we are talking about human memory, but computers can remember quite well, too. In fact memory is one of the few areas where it is universally agreed that computers are […]

30 Jan From Aristotle to the Enchanted Loom

Brain Sphere

“Swiftly the brain becomes an enchanted loom, where millions of flashing shuttles weave a dissolving pattern-always a meaningful pattern-though never an abiding one” (Charles Sherrington). What of the centillion warps and woofs of ideation? Does it never abide? Passing seems to take away all that was ever weft, unless the Gods endow immortality on our thoughts and carry them […]

16 Mar Neurons – Section 2 Intro

Neuron Components

 Neurons: Processing Elements or Storage Cells? In the Brains section of this blog, we examine the brain, its areas, and the types of neurons that populate the different layers of some of the brain’s areas. My posts in this segment will turn up the magnification and look a little deeper. What can be seen inside the cells? What is it that […]

06 Mar Correlation in Neuroeconomics

Coordinating Areas in the Cerebrum

I find that driving when my body is tense, especially on slick roads or in poor visibility, is uncomfortable to the point of danger. Stress is a killer. I found, as a student, that relaxing at the piano just before going in to the test helped me perform better (on the test). I think many […]

01 Dec Robot Neurons: Analog versus Digital

Digital Brain

Digital is basically black and white: 1 is yes and 0 is no or vice-versa. Yet our world is full of other colors. We can efficiently use digital devices to stretch arbitrary numbers of 1’s and 0’s together to represent a virtually infinite degree of possible values. Yet there are places where exactly two values may […]

19 Oct Think Before You Speak?

Brain Mouth

How closely is your brain connected to your mouth? Please don’t answer that. I want to blog about it for awhile so hold the thought. There is a bunch of electrical activity in the brain around organizing concepts into context, and a bunch more around putting your thoughts into words. This organizing and putting may […]

15 Sep What is Inside Neurons?

Intracellular Structure of Neurons In earlier posts, we examined the brain, its areas, and the types of neurons that populate the different layers of some of the brain’s areas. In this post and more to follow, we will turn up the magnification and look a little deeper. What can be seen inside the cells? What […]