Apprentices of Wonder (William Allman)

I really enjoyed this exploration of the connectionist/neural network approach to cognitive psychology, showing how the field was getting started. It does a great job of explaining how the connectionist view differs from the traditional computer analogy for mental processing, and describes the excitement and the wariness practitioners felt. The only problem is that the book is more than 20 years old (published in 1990), so it can't describe how the promises and perils have played out as the viewpoint matured. Otherwise, it's a good way for someone just exploring the field to get a picture of what these ideas are all about.