RESPONSE MAPPING FUNCTIONS: CLASSIFICATION AND ANALYSIS OF CONNECTIONIST REPRESENTATIONS.

A theoretical framework is presented in which connectionist representations can be classified and analyzed. The theoretical classification of connectionist variable representations has three purposes: to express existing variable representations in unified terms; to enable representations to be formally analyzed in a uniform manner; and to suggest new variable representations. In the the course of developing the theoretical framework for variable representations, it is shown that the process of measuring perceptual features or variables determines the type of connectionist representation for those features. This concept is further developed in a response mapping function analysis of distributed encodings.