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Cognitive Architecture (cognitive + architecture)

Distribution by Scientific Domains

Psychology	63%
Humanities and Social Sciences	18%

Selected Abstracts

THE HARMONIC MIND: FROM NEURAL COMPUTATION TO OPTIMALITY-THEORETIC GRAMMAR,VOLUME 1: COGNITIVE ARCHITECTURE AND VOLUME 2: LINGUISTIC AND PHILOSOPHICAL IMPLICATIONS

ANALYTIC PHILOSOPHY, Issue 3 2009
WILLIAM RAMSEY
First page of article [source]

Human Symbol Manipulation Within an Integrated Cognitive Architecture

COGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 3 2005
John R. Anderson
Abstract This article describes the Adaptive Control of Thought,Rational (ACT,R) cognitive architecture (Anderson et al., 2004; Anderson & Lebiere, 1998) and its detailed application to the learning of algebraic symbol manipulation. The theory is applied to modeling the data from a study by Qin, Anderson, Silk, Stenger, & Carter (2004) in which children learn to solve linear equations and perfect their skills over a 6-day period. Functional MRI data show that: (a) a motor region tracks the output of equation solutions, (b) a prefrontal region tracks the retrieval of declarative information, (c) a parietal region tracks the transformation of mental representations of the equation, (d) an anterior cingulate region tracks the setting of goal information to control the information flow, and (e) a caudate region tracks the firing of productions in the ACT,R model. The article concludes with an architectural comparison of the competence children display in this task and the competence that monkeys have shown in tasks that require manipulations of sequences of elements. [source]

Computational Evidence for the Subitizing Phenomenon as an Emergent Property of the Human Cognitive Architecture

COGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 1 2000
Scott A. Peterson
A computational modeling approach was used to test one possible explanation for the limited capacity of the subitizing phenomenon. Most existing models of this phenomenon associate the subitizing span with an assumed structural limitation of the human information processing system. In contrast, we show how this limit might emerge as the combinatorics of the space of enumeration problems interacts with the human cognitive architecture in the context of an enumeration task. Subitizing-like behavior was generated in two different models of enumeration, one based on the ACT-R cognitive architecture and the other based on the principles of parallel distributed processing (PDP). Our results provide good qualitative fits to results obtained in a variety of empirical studies. [source]

Leaf Processing by Wild Chimpanzees: Physically Defended Leaves Reveal Complex Manual Skills

ETHOLOGY, Issue 8 2002
Nadia Corp
The manual processing of eight species of leaf was investigated in the M-group chimpanzees of Mahale Mountains National Park, Tanzania. Leaf species varied in the extent to which physical defences made consumption difficult. In all, 96 distinct techniques for leaf processing were identified, but two species with defended leaves (Ficus asperifolia and F. exasperata) required 2.5 as many techniques as did any of the six undefended species. Moreover, chimpanzees made more multiple leaf detachments, and made more subsequent modifications of the leaves, when dealing with the leaves of these two Ficus species, compared with the undefended leaf species. This greater complexity was associated with evidence of flexible, hierarchical organization of the process: iteration of modules consisting of several processing elements, facultative omission of modules, or substitutions of alternative modules. Comparison with data from mountain gorillas is made, and is consistent with similar cognitive architecture in the two species. We consider that, not only is hierarchical organization currently associated with mechanical difficulty in food processing, but that over evolutionary time-scales difficulties in food processing may have selected for cognitive advance. [source]

Human information behavior: Integrating diverse approaches and information use

JOURNAL OF THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR INFORMATION SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY, Issue 1 2006
Amanda Spink
For millennia humans have sought, organized, and used information as they learned and evolved patterns of human information behaviors to resolve their human problems and survive. However, despite the current focus on living in an "information age," we have a limited evolutionary understanding of human information behavior. In this article the authors examine the current three interdisciplinary approaches to conceptualizing how humans have sought information including (a) the everyday life information seeking,sense-making approach, (b) the information foraging approach, and (c) the problem,solution perspective on information seeking approach. In addition, due to the lack of clarity regarding the role of information use in information behavior, a fourth information approach is provided based on a theory of information use. The use theory proposed starts from an evolutionary psychology notion that humans are able to adapt to their environment and survive because of our modular cognitive architecture. Finally, the authors begin the process of conceptualizing these diverse approaches, and the various aspects or elements of these approaches, within an integrated model with consideration of information use. An initial integrated model of these different approaches with information use is proposed. [source]

The Drink You Have When You're Not Having a Drink

MIND & LANGUAGE, Issue 3 2008
ROBERT A. WILSON
In this brief commentary I focus on these foundations,Carruthers' conception of modularity, his arguments for thinking that the mind is massively modular in structure, and his view of human cognitive architecture. [source]

Learner and information characteristics in the design of powerful learning environments

APPLIED COGNITIVE PSYCHOLOGY, Issue 3 2006
Fred Paas
This themed issue aims to present some current directions in cognitive load research. The contributions to this issue represent a compilation of symposia contributions to the 11th European Conference for Research on Learning and Instruction (EARLI), 2005, in Nicosia, Cyprus. These cognitive load symposia were focused on empirical and theoretical perspectives on designing powerful learning environments by aligning learner characteristics, information characteristics, or both with the knowledge structures underlying the cognitive architecture. This article provides an introduction to cognitive load theory and the instructional design consequences of these characteristics, and a short overview of the contributions to this issue. Copyright © 2006 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [source]

Harmony in Linguistic Cognition

COGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 5 2006
Paul Smolensky
Abstract In this article, I survey the integrated connectionist/symbolic (ICS) cognitive architecture in which higher cognition must be formally characterized on two levels of description. At the microlevel, parallel distributed processing (PDP) characterizes mental processing; this PDP system has special organization in virtue of which it can be characterized at the macrolevel as a kind of symbolic computational system. The symbolic system inherits certain properties from its PDP substrate; the symbolic functions computed constitute optimization of a well-formedness measure called Harmony. The most important outgrowth of the ICS research program is optimality theory (Prince & Smolensky, 1993/2004), an optimization-based grammatical theory that provides a formal theory of cross-linguistic typology. Linguistically, Harmony maximization corresponds to minimization of markedness or structural ill-formedness. Cognitive explanation in ICS requires the collaboration of symbolic and connectionist principles. ICS is developed in detail in Smolensky and Legendre (2006a); this article is a précis of and guide to those volumes. [source]

Human Symbol Manipulation Within an Integrated Cognitive Architecture

Starting with complex primitives pays off: complicate locally, simplify globally

COGNITIVE SCIENCE - A MULTIDISCIPLINARY JOURNAL, Issue 5 2004
Aravind K. Joshi
Abstract In setting up a formal system to specify a grammar formalism, the conventional (mathematical) wisdom is to start with primitives (basic primitive structures) as simple as possible, and then introduce various operations for constructing more complex structures. An alternate approach is to start with complex (more complicated) primitives, which directly capture some crucial linguistic properties and then introduce some general operations for composing these complex structures. These two approaches provide different domains of locality, i.e., domains over which various types of linguistic dependencies can be specified. The latter approach, characterized as complicate locally, simplify globally (CLSG), pushes non-local dependencies to become local, i.e., they arise in the basic primitive structures to start with. The CLSG approach has led to some new insights into syntactic description, semantic composition, language generation, statistical processing, and psycholinguistic phenomena, all these with possible relevance to the cognitive architecture of language. In this paper, we will describe these results in an introductory manner making use of the framework of lexicalized tree-adjoining grammar (LTAG), a key example of the CLSG approach, thereby describing the interplay between formal analysis on the one hand and linguistic and processing issues on the other hand. [source]