A SYMBOLIC MODEL OF THE NONCONSCIOUS ACQUISITION OF INFORMATION

This article presents counter evidence against Smolensky's theory that human intuitive/nonconscious congnitive processes can only be accurat ely explained in terms of subsymbolic computations carried out in arti ficial neural networks. We present symbolic learning models of two wel l-studied, complicated cognitive tasks involving nonconscious acquisit ion of information: learning production rules and artificial finite st ate grammars. Our results demonstrate that intuitive learning does not imply subsymbolic computation, and that the already well-established, perceived correlation between ''conscious'' and ''symbolic'' on the o ne hand, and between ''nonconscious'' and ''subsymbolic'' on the other , does not exist.