A protoconnectionist theory of memory

Abstract

I. A. Richards published a chapter entitled "Memory" in 1924 in which he proposed what may be viewed as the outline of a connectionist theory of memory. However, this protoconnectionist theory attracted no subsequent attention. There appear to be two types of reason for this neglect. The first concerns the impossibility at that time of implementing the theory in the form of an explicit model. The second concerns the nature of Richards's career. On the one hand, Richards did not himself subsequently develop his theory of memory any further. On the other, the fact that Richards was not generally perceived as a psychologist probably impeded the dissemination of his theory among psychologists. The neglect of Richards's theory demonstrates the range of factors, other than the strictly scientific, which can be important in determining the influence or otherwise of a psychological theory. © 1993 Psychonomic Society, Inc.