In 1986 McClelland published
Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition with
David Rumelhart, which some still regard as a bible for
cognitive scientists.
Geoffrey Hinton was a member of the PDP group. McClelland present work focuses on learning, memory processes, and
psycholinguistics, 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
David Rumelhart are known for their debate with
Steven Pinker and
Alan Prince regarding the necessity of a language-specific learning module. In fall 2006 McClelland moved to
Stanford University from
Carnegie Mellon University, where he was a professor of psychology and
Cognitive Neuroscience. 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. == Awards ==