Both Andrews and Latimer note that explicitness can be a problem when modellers differentiate theory relevant and theory irrelevant components. Putative theory irrelevant components usually arise from hacks which the researcher did not consider before they attempted to implement their model as a computer program. Theory irrelevance is a claim of invariance over a class of implementations. If the connectionist model is not to share the verbal model's flexibility of interpretation, the invariance claim must be justified. As a researcher concerned with reaction time, I would like to support Kohonen's claim in his invited address to the Fifth Australian Conference on Neural Networks that a connectionist unit's behaviour should be characterised in terms of a differential equation.
Differential equations make reaction time a natural prediction of connectionist models.
A decay term removes the problem of autonomous reset between trials and is useful in modelling sequential dependencies. Finally, the explicit analyses of psychological models recommended above can be performed with the powerful tools available for the analysis of dynamical systems. Connectionist models and their properties. A model of episodic recognition memory. Proceedings of the Fifth Australian Conference on Neural Networks.