--- title: "James L. McClelland — author profile and papers in our library" description: "James L. McClelland, Stanford University: 3 papers on Elamur Research (2013–2022), h-index 105 — affiliations, topics, co-authors and who…" canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/james-l-mcclelland/" --- [Elamur Research](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) · [this page in HTML](https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/james-l-mcclelland/) [home](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/) / [authors](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/) / James L. McClelland # James L. McClelland James L. McClelland has 3 papers in our library, in 2013–2022, most of them on [Language models & pretraining](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/), [Reasoning](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/reasoning/); often with [Andrew Lampinen](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/andrew-lampinen/), [Antonia Creswell](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/antonia-creswell/), [Felix Hill](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/felix-hill/). 3 papers in our library · 2013–2022 [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/A5020224649) · [ORCID](https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8217-405X) · [Wikidata](https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Q93125) · [**h-index 105**](https://openalex.org/authors/A5020224649) · [413 works](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5020224649) · [81,529 citations](https://openalex.org/works?filter=author.id:A5020224649&sort=cited_by_count:desc) OpenAlex, 2026-10-14 [📄 3 works in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/james-l-mcclelland/#papers) · [🔗 Cited 476 times in our library](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/james-l-mcclelland/cited-by/) · [2 more in our library without a page yet](#also) · [⭐ Paper Stars ranking: #2028](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/paper-stars/page/21/#star-2028) The profile is the library's match of the name; two people with one name are not always told apart. Elsewhere: [Google Scholar](https://scholar.google.com/citations?view_op=search_authors&mauthors=James+L.+McClelland) · [Semantic Scholar](https://www.semanticscholar.org/search?q=James+L.+McClelland) · [dblp](https://dblp.org/search?q=James+L.+McClelland) · [ACL Anthology](https://aclanthology.org/search/?q=James+L.+McClelland) ## Affiliations [🎓**Stanford University** Stanford · United States 2001–2026 · 115 papersEmployment since 2006 · Professor, Psychology and Center for Mind Brain and Computation*current*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/stanford-university/) · [🎓**Carnegie Mellon University** Pittsburgh · United States 1985–2020 · 93 papersEmployment](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/carnegie-mellon-university/) · [🔬**Center for the Neural Basis of Cognition** Pittsburgh · United States 1994–2020 · 43 papers](https://ror.org/00jfeg660) · [🎓**University of California San Diego** San Diego · United States 1975–1988 · 17 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-california-san-diego/) · [🏢**Google DeepMind** London · United Kingdom 2020–2024 · 3 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/companies/google-deepmind/) · [🎓**University of Pittsburgh** Pittsburgh · United States 1985–2018 · 3 papersEmployment](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-pittsburgh/) · [🏛️**Medical Research Council** London · United Kingdom 1996–2020 · 2 papers](https://ror.org/03x94j517) · [🎓**University of Southern California** Los Angeles · United States 1996–2020 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-southern-california/) · [🎓**University of Manchester** Manchester · United Kingdom 2009–2018 · 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-manchester/) · [🎓**University of Pennsylvania** Philadelphia · United States 1973–1975 · 2 papersEducation since 1975 · PhD in Cognitive Psychology, Psychology](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/universities/university-of-pennsylvania/) From the bylines of their papers (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14), ORCID and Wikidata; institutions on papers are matched by machine. 9 more institutions on single bylines are not listed. ## Fields, topics and concepts Of its works in our library, with the number of works on each. 📚 Shelves 4 The field of science this work belongs to (OpenAlex fields).[Artificial Intelligence · 3 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/artificial-intelligence/) · [Computer Science · 3 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/computer-science/) · [Arts and Humanities · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/) · [Language and Linguistics · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/arts-and-humanities/language-and-linguistics/) 🧭 Topics 2 Research subjects and languages the work is about.[Language models & pretraining · 2 works](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/language-models/) · [Reasoning · 1 work](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/reasoning/) ## Works by year ### 2020s [**2022** 2 papers](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/james-l-mcclelland/year/2022/) ### 2010s [**2013** 1 paper](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/james-l-mcclelland/year/2013/) ## Papers The most cited first (OpenAlex and our library). 1. **[Exact solutions to the nonlinear dynamics of learning in deep linear neural networks](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/saxe-2013-exact-solutions-nonlinear-dynamics-learning/)** *(2013 · 1,027 citations)* Why deep networks train slowly, stall on long plateaus and then suddenly improve, and benefit from certain initializations has lacked a quantitative explanation. 2. **[Can language models learn from explanations in context?](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lampinen-2022-can-language-models-learn-explanations/)** *(2022 · 295 citations)* Large language models can pick up new tasks from a handful of in-context examples. The authors test whether adding explanations to those examples, as people do when teaching, also helps models. They took 40 difficult tasks and subtasks from BIG-bench. For each, one author wrote post-answer explanations for 15 sampled… 3. **[Language models show human-like content effects on reasoning tasks](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/dasgupta-2022-language-models-show-human-like/)** *(2022 · 162 citations)* Ideally, abstract reasoning should not depend on what a problem is about. Yet people reason better when a problem's meaning agrees with the logically correct answer. Psychologists call these "content effects." This paper asks whether large language models, whose expectations come from human-written text, blend… ## All works 5 works of theirs in our library, the most cited first; 3 with a page here, the others link their original until we summarise them. 1. [**Exact solutions to the nonlinear dynamics of learning in deep linear neural networks arXiv:1312.6120**Andrew M. Saxe, James L. McClelland, Surya Ganguli*2013 · 1,027 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/saxe-2013-exact-solutions-nonlinear-dynamics-learning/) 2. **[Can language models learn from explanations in context?](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/lampinen-2022-can-language-models-learn-explanations/) [Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/findings/)**Andrew Lampinen, Ishita Dasgupta, Stephanie Chan, et al.*2022 · 295 citations* 3. [**Language models show human-like content effects on reasoning tasks arXiv:2207.07051**Ishita Dasgupta, Andrew K. Lampinen, Stephanie C. Y. Chan, et al.*2022 · 162 citations*](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/dasgupta-2022-language-models-show-human-like/) 4. **[Data Distributional Properties Drive Emergent In-Context Learning in Transformers ↗](https://arxiv.org/abs/2205.05055) arXiv:2205.05055 · no summary yet**Stephanie C. Y. Chan et al.*2022 · 158 citations* 5. **[Placing language in an integrated understanding system: Next steps toward human-level performance in neural language models ↗](https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1910416117) Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · no summary yet**James L. McClelland et al.*2020 · 104 citations* ## Co-authors here 6 co-authors with a page, the most papers together first. - [Andrew Lampinen](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/andrew-lampinen/) ×2 - [Antonia Creswell](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/antonia-creswell/) ×2 - [Felix Hill](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/felix-hill/) ×2 - [Ishita Dasgupta](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/ishita-dasgupta/) ×2 - [Stephanie Chan](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/stephanie-chan/) ×2 - [Surya Ganguli](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/surya-ganguli/) ## Venues Where their works here were published, the most works first, with the editions of those that have a page. - [Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/findings/): [Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics 2022](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/venues/findings/2022/) - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ## Cited by Papers of our library cite their works 476 times (of the 149,439 papers whose bibliographies we read); [113 citing papers with a page here →](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/james-l-mcclelland/cited-by/). Updated 2 November 2026