James Lloyd "Jay" McClelland, FBA (born December 1, 1948) is the Lucie Stern Professor at

Stanford University Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a Private university, private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth ...

, where he was formerly the chair of the

Psychology Psychology is the scientific study of mind and behavior. Its subject matter includes the behavior of humans and nonhumans, both consciousness, conscious and Unconscious mind, unconscious phenomena, and mental processes such as thoughts, feel ...

Department. He is best known for his work on statistical learning and Parallel Distributed Processing, applying

connectionist Connectionism is an approach to the study of human mental processes and cognition that utilizes mathematical models known as connectionist networks or artificial neural networks. Connectionism has had many "waves" since its beginnings. The first ...

models (or

neural networks A neural network is a group of interconnected units called neurons that send signals to one another. Neurons can be either Cell (biology), biological cells or signal pathways. While individual neurons are simple, many of them together in a netwo ...

) to explain cognitive phenomena such as spoken word recognition and visual word recognition. McClelland is to a large extent responsible for the large increase in scientific interest in connectionism in the 1980s.

Early life and education

McClelland was born on December 1, 1948, to Walter Moore and Frances (Shaffer) McClelland. He received a B.A. in Psychology from

Columbia University Columbia University in the City of New York, commonly referred to as Columbia University, is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Churc ...

in 1970, and a Ph.D. in Cognitive Psychology from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (Penn or UPenn) is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, United States. One of nine colonial colleges, it was chartered in 1755 through the efforts of f ...

in 1975. He married Heidi Marsha Feldman on May 6, 1978, and has two daughters.

Career

In 1986 McClelland published ''Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition'' with

David Rumelhart David Everett Rumelhart (June 12, 1942 – March 13, 2011) was an American psychologist who made many contributions to the formal analysis of cognition, human cognition, working primarily within the frameworks of mathematical psychology, symbo ...

, which some still regard as a bible for cognitive scientists.

Geoffrey Hinton Geoffrey Everest Hinton (born 1947) is a British-Canadian computer scientist, cognitive scientist, and cognitive psychologist known for his work on artificial neural networks, which earned him the title "the Godfather of AI". Hinton is Univer ...

was a member of the PDP group. McClelland present work focuses on learning, memory processes, and

psycholinguistics Psycholinguistics or psychology of language is the study of the interrelation between linguistic factors and psychological aspects. The discipline is mainly concerned with the mechanisms by which language is processed and represented in the mind ...

, still within the framework of connectionist models. He is a former chair of the Rumelhart Prize committee, having collaborated with Rumelhart for many years, and himself received the award in 2010 at the Cognitive Science Society Annual Conference in Portland, Oregon. McClelland and

are known for their debate with

Steven Pinker Steven Arthur Pinker (born September 18, 1954) is a Canadian-American cognitive psychology, cognitive psychologist, psycholinguistics, psycholinguist, popular science author, and public intellectual. He is an advocate of evolutionary psycholo ...

and Alan Prince regarding the necessity of a language-specific learning module. In fall 2006 McClelland moved to

from

Carnegie Mellon University Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...

, where he was a professor of psychology and

Cognitive Neuroscience Cognitive neuroscience is the scientific field that is concerned with the study of the Biology, biological processes and aspects that underlie cognition, with a specific focus on the neural connections in the brain which are involved in mental ...

. He also holds a part-time appointment as Consulting Professor at the Neuroscience and Aphasia Research Unit (NARU) within the School of Psychological Sciences,

University of Manchester The University of Manchester is a public university, public research university in Manchester, England. The main campus is south of Manchester city centre, Manchester City Centre on Wilmslow Road, Oxford Road. The University of Manchester is c ...

Awards

* Mind & Brain Prize *

University of Louisville The University of Louisville (UofL) is a public university, public research university in Louisville, Kentucky, United States. It is part of the Kentucky state university system. Chartered in 1798 as the Jefferson Seminary, it became in the 19t ...

Grawemeyer Award The Grawemeyer Awards () are five awards given annually by the University of Louisville. The prizes are presented to individuals in the fields of education, ideas improving world order, music composition, religion, and psychology. The religion awa ...

in psychology, 2002 * William W. Cumming prize from Columbia University, 1970 * Research Scientist Career Development Award from the

National Institute of Mental Health The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the primar ...

, 1981—86, 1987—97 * Fellow,

National Science Foundation The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) is an Independent agencies of the United States government#Examples of independent agencies, independent agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government that su ...

, 1970—73 * Rumelhart Prize, 2010 * C.L. de Carvalho-Heineken Prize, 2014 In July 2017, McClelland was elected a Corresponding Fellow of the British Academy (FBA), the United Kingdom's

national academy A national academy is an organizational body, usually operating with state financial support and approval, that co-ordinates scholarly research activities and standards for academic disciplines, and serves as a public policy advisors, research ...

for the humanities and social sciences.

References

External links

Personal website

Staff website at University of Manchester
{{DEFAULTSORT:McClelland, James Computational psychologists American cognitive neuroscientists Speech perception researchers Rumelhart Prize laureates Stanford University Department of Psychology faculty Carnegie Mellon University faculty Fellows of the Society of Experimental Psychologists Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Fellows of the American Association for the Advancement of Science 1948 births Living people Psycholinguists Winners of the Heineken Prize Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society Corresponding fellows of the British Academy APA Distinguished Scientific Award for an Early Career Contribution to Psychology recipients 20th-century American psychologists 21st-century American psychologists

Early life and education

Career

Awards

See also

References

External links