Jeffrey Locke Elman (January 22, 1948 – June 28, 2018) was an American psycholinguist and professor of

cognitive science Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary, scientific study of the mind and its processes. It examines the nature, the tasks, and the functions of cognition (in a broad sense). Mental faculties of concern to cognitive scientists include percep ...

at the

University of California, San Diego The University of California, San Diego (UC San Diego in communications material, formerly and colloquially UCSD) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in San Diego, California, United States. Es ...

(UCSD). He specialized in the field of

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 ...

. In 1990, he introduced the simple

recurrent neural network Recurrent neural networks (RNNs) are a class of artificial neural networks designed for processing sequential data, such as text, speech, and time series, where the order of elements is important. Unlike feedforward neural networks, which proces ...

(SRNN), also known as the 'Elman network', which is capable of processing sequentially ordered stimuli, and has since become widely used. Elman's work was highly significant to our understanding of how languages are acquired and also, once acquired, how sentences are comprehended. Sentences in natural languages are composed of sequences of words that are organized in phrases and hierarchical structures. The Elman network provides an important hypothesis for how such structures might be learned and processed.Jeffrey L. Elman. Finding structure in time. ''Cognitive Science'', Volume 14, Issue 2, Pages 179-211, 1990

Early life

Elman attended Palisades High School in Pacific Palisades, California, then

Harvard University Harvard University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1636 and named for its first benefactor, the History of the Puritans in North America, Puritan clergyma ...

, where he graduated in 1969. He received his Ph.D. from the

University of Texas at Austin The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

in 1977.The David E. Rumelhart Prize
.

Career

With Jay McClelland, Elman developed the TRACE model of

speech perception Speech perception is the process by which the sounds of language are heard, interpreted, and understood. The study of speech perception is closely linked to the fields of phonology and phonetics in linguistics and cognitive psychology and percept ...

in the mid-80s. TRACE remains a highly influential model that has stimulated a large body of empirical research. In 1990, he introduced the simple

(SRNN; aka 'Elman network'), which is a widely used recurrent neural network that is capable of processing sequentially ordered stimuli. Elman nets are used in a number of fields, including

, psychology, economics and physics, among many others. In 1996, he co-authored (with Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Elizabeth Bates, Mark H. Johnson, Domenico Parisi, and Kim Plunkett), the book ''

Rethinking Innateness ''Rethinking Innateness: A connectionist perspective on development'' is a book regarding gene/environment interaction by Jeffrey Elman, Annette Karmiloff-Smith, Elizabeth Bates, Mark Johnson, Domenico Parisi, and Kim Plunkett published in 199 ...

'', which argues against a strong nativist (innate) view of development. Elman was an Inaugural Fellow of the Cognitive Science Society, and also was its president, from 1999 to 2000. He was awarded an honorary doctorate from the New Bulgarian University, and was the 2007 recipient of the David E. Rumelhart Prize for Theoretical Contributions to Cognitive Science. He was founding co-director of the Kavli Institute for Brain and Mind at UC San Diego, and held the Chancellor's Associates Endowed Chair. He was Dean of Social Sciences at UCSD from 2008 until June 2014. Elman was also a founding co-director of the UCSD Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute, announced March 1, 2018. In 2009 Elman sent a letter to UCSD sociology professor Richard Biernacki, instructing him not to publish research which was critical of one of his colleagues at UCSD, and of other scholars in the field. Elman's letter suggested that Biernacki's criticism of the UCSD colleague constituted "harassment" and threatened Biernacki with censure, salary reduction or dismissal if he tried to publish his work. In addition, the letter threatened Biernacki with termination were he to request data from the National Science Foundation. The Committee on Academic Freedom of the UCSD Academic Senate initiated an investigation of the letter. In May 2011, after hearing a report from the committee, the UCSD faculty senate expressed "grave concern" about the incident, which it deemed a violation of academic freedom. The committee called on the administration to acknowledge and correct the situation. Elman died of a heart condition on June 28, 2018, at the age of 70.

References

External links

Personal website

UC San Diego Department of Cognitive Science

Center for Research in Language, UCSD

Kavli Institute for Brain & Mind, UCSD

Cognitive Science Society

Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elman, Jeffrey L. 1948 births 2018 deaths 20th-century American psychologists Psycholinguists Speech perception researchers University of California, San Diego faculty Rumelhart Prize laureates Harvard University alumni Fellows of the Cognitive Science Society University of Texas at Austin College of Liberal Arts alumni Linguists from the United States