Neurocostructivism aims to illustrate and explain cognitive development in relation to the underlying neural structures, with the help of computational models. This enterprise should be grounded both in the evolutionary and in the developmental perspectives. In both, selection plays a fundamental role in the construction of neural and cognitive structures.

The two most popular, yet opposing, models of taste processing, the labeled-line (LL) and across-neuron pattern (ANP) theories, are variants of spatial neural coding. Analyses whose outcomes have been argued to support either theory have sometimes glossed over important caveats and considerations that may drastically impact interpretation. Some of these issues are discussed here.

Defining brain mechanisms that control and adapt motivated behavior will not only advance addiction treatment. It will help society see that addiction is a disease that erodes free will, rather than representing a free will that asks for or deserves consequences of drug-use choices. This science has important implications for understanding addiction's comorbidity in mental illness and reducing associated public health and criminal justice burdens.

In this précis of our recent book, Semantic Cognition: A Parallel Distributed Processing Approach (Rogers & McClelland 2004), we present a parallel distributed processing theory of the acquisition, representation, and use of human semantic knowledge. The theory proposes that semantic abilities arise from the flow of activation among simple, neuron-like processing units, as governed by the strengths of interconnecting weights; and that acquisition of new semantic information involves the gradual adjustment of weights in the system in response to experience. These simple ideas explain a wide range of empirical phenomena from studies of categorization, lexical acquisition, and disordered semantic cognition. In this précis we focus on phenomena central to the reaction against similarity-based theories that arose in the 1980s and that subsequently motivated the “theory-theory” approach to semantic knowledge. Specifically, we consider (1) how concepts differentiate in early development, (2) why some groupings of items seem to form “good” or coherent categories while others do not, (3) why different properties seem central or important to different concepts, (4) why children and adults sometimes attest to beliefs that seem to contradict their direct experience, (5) how concepts reorganize between the ages of 4 and 10, and (6) the relationship between causal knowledge and semantic knowledge. The explanations our theory offers for these phenomena are illustrated with reference to a simple feed-forward connectionist model. The relationships between this simple model, the broader theory, and more general issues in cognitive science are discussed.

We argue that neural networks for semantic cognition, as proposed by Rogers & McClelland (R&M), do not acquire semantics and therefore cannot be the basis for a theory of semantic cognition. The reason is that the neural networks simply perform statistical categorization procedures, and these do not require any semantics for their successful operation. We conclude that this has severe consequences for the semantic cognition views of R&M.

The consideration of gambling as a decision-making disorder may fail to explain why the majority of people gamble, yet only a small percentage of people lose control of their behaviour to the point where their gambling becomes problematic. The application of dual process theories to gambling addiction offers a means of explaining the differences between “normal” and “problem” gambling, augmenting the multiple vulnerabilities proposed by Redish et al.

We propose three extensions of the theory developed by Juslin & Västfjäll (J&V). First, motion should be considered as an additional mechanism. Second, synchronization plays a role in eliciting emotion. And, third, the spectrum of musical affect or feelings is denser and broader than the spectrum of emotions, suggesting an expansion of the scope of the theory beyond emotions.

There is both empirical evidence that supports, and does not support, the four basic tastes, as well as the labeled-line and across-fiber pattern theories. All of these concepts have proven useful to researchers investigating taste coding, and should be appreciated for their heuristic value. Dismissal of any of them is neither supported by evidence nor productive.

Neuroconstructivism is a hybrid of two incompatible philosophical traditions: a radical idealism insisting upon the free activity of the Subject; and a radical materialistic anthropomorphism, which ascribes inherent properties of humans (e.g., the ability to construct) to nonhuman objects or body parts (e.g., the brain). The two traditions can be combined only by obscuring or confusing the basic notions.

Although prediction is one of the key tasks of intelligent brains, it often proves impossible in an unpredictably changing world. Hence, brains often decide what happened retrospectively. This framework of postdiction, the opposite of prediction, stands as an alternative or complimentary framework to prediction. I further show how motor-sensory recalibration demonstrates delay compensation at the perceptual level.

The framework for addiction offered by the target article can perhaps be simplified into fewer, more basic, vulnerabilities. “Impulsivity” covers a number of vulnerabilities, not just enhanced delay discounting. Real-world drug-use decisions involve both delay and probability discounting. The motivational salience of, and attentional bias for, drug cues may be related to a number of vulnerabilities. Interactions among vulnerabilities are of significance and complicate the application of this framework.

Recurrent lexicalization patterns across widely different cultural contexts can provide a window onto common conceptualizations. The cross-linguistic data support the idea that sweet, salt, sour, and bitter are basic tastes. In addition, umami and fatty are likely basic tastes, as well.

We suggest that semantic association may be a further mechanism by which music may elicit emotion. Furthermore, we note that emotional contagion is not always an immediate process requiring little prior information processing; rather, emotional contagion contributing to music processing may constitute a more complex decoding mechanism for information inherent in the music, which may be subject to a time course of activation.

Nijhawan's theory rests on the assumption that transient signals compete with predictive signals to generate the visual percept. We describe experiments that show that this assumption is incorrect. Our results are consistent with an alternative theory that proposes that vision is instead postdictive, in that the perception of an event is influenced by occurrences after the event.

We describe evidence that certain inductive phenomena are associated with IQ, that different inductive phenomena emerge at different ages, and that the effects of causal knowledge on induction are decreased under conditions of memory load. On the basis of this evidence we argue that there is more to inductive reasoning than semantic cognition.

Neuroconstructivism (Mareschal et al. 2007a) provides a useful framework for how to integrate research from different levels of analysis to model the multidimensional dynamics of development. However, the authors overlook the topic of meaning, a fundamental feature of cognition and subjective experience and also downplay the nonlinear nature of developmental causality. Neuroconstructivism is overly optimistic on the point of how well current computational models can address the challenge of complexity in developmental science.

In the target article, Juslin & Västfjäll (J&V) contend that neural mechanisms not unique to music are critical to its capability to convey emotion. The work reviewed here provides a broader context for this proposal. Human abilities to signal emotion through sound could have been essential to human evolution, and may have contributed vital foundations for music. Future learning experiments are needed to further clarify engagement underlying musical and broader emotional signaling.

Evidence for motion extrapolation at motion offset is scarce. In contrast, there is abundant evidence that subjects mentally extrapolate the future trajectory of weak motion signals at motion offset. Further, pointing movements overshoot at motion offset. We believe that mental and sensorimotor extrapolation is sufficient to solve the problem of perceptual latencies. Both present the advantage of being much more flexible than motion extrapolation.

Erickson's article links the concept of four “basic” tastes to color perception as a sensory modality with similar problems of categorization. Such problems are also present for odors and olfaction. Olfaction is the sensory modality with the closest physical relationship to taste, and the sense organs of both permanently interact. We discuss the origins and influences of core ideas of the science of smell to add to the discussion of unresolved categorization problems in taste from another, closely related point of view.

Three issues are raised in this commentary. First, the mapping of semantic information into the different layers could be done in a more realistic way by using the Context layer to represent situational contexts. Second, a way to differentiate category membership information from other property information needs to be considered. Finally, the issue of modal knowledge is raised.