The short-term impact of CMAC research was modest. CMAC was awarded an IR-100 award and a Department of Commerce Silver Medal, but had little immediate effect on the field of neural nets. At the time of its publication, the field of neural networks had fallen
into a state of disrepute. Minsky and Papert had recently published their influential book entitled Perceptrons in hich they demonstrated some of the theoretical limitations of neural networks [11]. Over-reaction to the negative conclusions of the Minsky-Papert critique had a profound impact on neural net researchers. Virtually all interest in (and funding support for) neural network research evaporated for almost a decade. Serious interest in neural network research did not recover until the late 1980s with the invention of back propagation, adaptive resonance theory, Hopfield nets, and a number of other new discoveries.