Ron Sun
Encyclopedia
Ron Sun is a cognitive scientist and currently Professor of Cognitive Science at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
, and formerly the James C. Dowell Professor of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science at University of Missouri
. He received his Ph.D in 1992 from Brandeis University
.
His research interest centers around the study of cognition, especially in the areas of cognitive architectures, human reasoning and learning, cognitive social simulation
, and hybrid connectionist-symbolic models. Over the years, his work has been wide-ranging, and spans cognitive science
, psychology
, philosophy
, computer science
, artificial intelligence
, and social sciences
.
For his paper on integrating rule-based and connectionist models for accounting for human everyday reasoning, he received the 1991 David Marr Award from Cognitive Science Society
. For his work on human skill learning, he received the 2008 Hebb Award from the International Neural Network Society.
Throughout the past two decades, he has been conducting research in the fields of psychology
of learning and hybrid neural network
(in particular, applying these models to research on human skill acquisition). Specifically, he has worked on the integrated effect of "top-down" and "bottom-up" learning in human skill acquisition, in a variety of task domains, for example, navigation tasks, reasoning tasks, and implicit learning tasks. This inclusion of bottom-up learning processes has been revolutionary in cognitive psychology, because most previous models of learning had focused exclusively on top-down learning (whereas human learning clearly happens in both directions). This research has culminated with the development of an integrated cognitive architecture
that can be used to provide a qualitative and quantitative explanation of empirical psychological learning data. The model, CLARION
, is a hybrid neural network that can be used to simulate problem solving and social interactions as well. More importantly, CLARION was the first psychological model that proposed an explanation for the “bottom-up learning” mechanisms present in human skill acquisition: His numerous papers on the subject have brought attention to this neglected area in cognitive psychology.
He is the founding co-editor-in-chief of the journal Cognitive Systems Research, and also serves on the editorial boards of many other journals. He was the general chair and the program chair of CogSci 2006, and the program chair of IJCNN 2007. He is a member of the Governing Boards of Cognitive Science Society
and of International Neural Networks Society.
Another strand of his work is what he called cognitive social sciences --- the re-unification of the cognitive and social sciences through grounding the social sciences in the cognitive sciences.
In recent years, he attempted the difficult task of laying the theoretical and meta-theoretical foundation for computational cognitive modeling (or computational psychology), through the philosophical work of constructive empiricism
, which is opposed to scientific realism
.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Stephen Van Rensselaer established the Rensselaer School on November 5, 1824 with a letter to the Rev. Dr. Samuel Blatchford, in which van Rensselaer asked Blatchford to serve as the first president. Within the letter he set down several orders of business. He appointed Amos Eaton as the school's...
, and formerly the James C. Dowell Professor of Engineering and Professor of Computer Science at University of Missouri
University of Missouri
The University of Missouri System is a state university system providing centralized administration for four universities, a health care system, an extension program, five research and technology parks, and a publishing press. More than 64,000 students are currently enrolled at its four campuses...
. He received his Ph.D in 1992 from Brandeis University
Brandeis University
Brandeis University is an American private research university with a liberal arts focus. It is located in the southwestern corner of Waltham, Massachusetts, nine miles west of Boston. The University has an enrollment of approximately 3,200 undergraduate and 2,100 graduate students. In 2011, it...
.
His research interest centers around the study of cognition, especially in the areas of cognitive architectures, human reasoning and learning, cognitive social simulation
Social simulation
Social simulation is a research field that applies computational methods to study issues in the social sciences. The issues explored include problems in sociology, political science, economics, anthropology, geography, archaeology and linguistics ....
, and hybrid connectionist-symbolic models. Over the years, his work has been wide-ranging, and spans cognitive science
Cognitive science
Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...
, psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, computer science
Computer science
Computer science or computing science is the study of the theoretical foundations of information and computation and of practical techniques for their implementation and application in computer systems...
, artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
, and social sciences
Social sciences
Social science is the field of study concerned with society. "Social science" is commonly used as an umbrella term to refer to a plurality of fields outside of the natural sciences usually exclusive of the administrative or managerial sciences...
.
For his paper on integrating rule-based and connectionist models for accounting for human everyday reasoning, he received the 1991 David Marr Award from Cognitive Science Society
Cognitive Science Society
The Cognitive Science Society is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields who hold the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind...
. For his work on human skill learning, he received the 2008 Hebb Award from the International Neural Network Society.
Throughout the past two decades, he has been conducting research in the fields of psychology
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
of learning and hybrid neural network
Neural network
The term neural network was traditionally used to refer to a network or circuit of biological neurons. The modern usage of the term often refers to artificial neural networks, which are composed of artificial neurons or nodes...
(in particular, applying these models to research on human skill acquisition). Specifically, he has worked on the integrated effect of "top-down" and "bottom-up" learning in human skill acquisition, in a variety of task domains, for example, navigation tasks, reasoning tasks, and implicit learning tasks. This inclusion of bottom-up learning processes has been revolutionary in cognitive psychology, because most previous models of learning had focused exclusively on top-down learning (whereas human learning clearly happens in both directions). This research has culminated with the development of an integrated cognitive architecture
Cognitive architecture
A cognitive architecture is a blueprint for intelligent agents. It proposes computational processes that act like certain cognitive systems, most often, like a person, or acts intelligent under some definition. Cognitive architectures form a subset of general agent architectures...
that can be used to provide a qualitative and quantitative explanation of empirical psychological learning data. The model, CLARION
Clarion
-In music:* Clarion , a type of trumpet used in the Middle Ages* Clarion register of clarinets, ranging from B4 to C6-Places:* Clarion, Illinois, USA* Clarion, Iowa, USA...
, is a hybrid neural network that can be used to simulate problem solving and social interactions as well. More importantly, CLARION was the first psychological model that proposed an explanation for the “bottom-up learning” mechanisms present in human skill acquisition: His numerous papers on the subject have brought attention to this neglected area in cognitive psychology.
He is the founding co-editor-in-chief of the journal Cognitive Systems Research, and also serves on the editorial boards of many other journals. He was the general chair and the program chair of CogSci 2006, and the program chair of IJCNN 2007. He is a member of the Governing Boards of Cognitive Science Society
Cognitive Science Society
The Cognitive Science Society is a professional society for the interdisciplinary field of cognitive science. It brings together researchers from many fields who hold the common goal of understanding the nature of the human mind...
and of International Neural Networks Society.
Another strand of his work is what he called cognitive social sciences --- the re-unification of the cognitive and social sciences through grounding the social sciences in the cognitive sciences.
In recent years, he attempted the difficult task of laying the theoretical and meta-theoretical foundation for computational cognitive modeling (or computational psychology), through the philosophical work of constructive empiricism
Constructive empiricism
In philosophy, constructive empiricism is a form of empiricism. Bas van Fraassen is nearly solely responsible for the initial development of constructive empiricism; its historically most important presentation appears in his The Scientific Image...
, which is opposed to scientific realism
Scientific realism
Scientific realism is, at the most general level, the view that the world described by science is the real world, as it is, independent of what we might take it to be...
.
Books
- R. Sun, (ed.) The Cambridge Handbook of Computational Psychology. Cambridge University Press, New York. 2008.
- R. Sun, Cognition and Multi-Agent Interaction: From Cognitive Modeling to Social Simulation. Cambridge University Press, New York. 2006.
- R. Sun, Duality of the Mind. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ. 2002.
- R. Sun and L. Giles, (eds.) Sequence Learning: Paradigms, Algorithms, and Applications. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg. 2000.
- S. Wermter and R. Sun, (eds.) Hybrid Neural Systems. Springer-Verlag, Heidelberg. 2000.
- R. Sun and F. Alexandre, (eds.) Connectionist-Symbolic Integration. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Mahwah, NJ. 1997.
- R. Sun, Integrating Rules and Connectionism for Robust Commonsense Reasoning. John Wiley and Sons, New York. 1994.
- R. Sun & L. Bookman, (eds.), Computational Architectures Integrating Neural and Symbolic Processes. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Needham, MA. 1994.
External links
- Ron Sun's Homepage
- Marquis Who's Who in America (53rd, 56th, 57th, 58th editions)http://www.marquiswhoswho.com/
- Third party biography
- Publications search
- Citations search