Production System Models of Learning and Development

Book excerpt: Cognitive psychologists have found the production systems class of computer simulation models to be one of the most direct ways to cast complex theories of human intelligence. There have been many scattered studies on production systems since they were first proposed as computational models of human problem-solving behavior by Allen Newell some twenty years ago, but this is the first book to focus exclusively on these important models of human cognition, collecting and giving many of the best examples of current research. In the first chapter, Robert Neches, Pat Langley, and David Klahr provide an overview of the fundamental issues involved in using production systems as a medium for theorizing about cognitive processes, emphasizing their theoretical power. The remaining chapters take up learning by doing and learning by understanding, discrimination learning, learning through incremental refinement, learning by chunking, procedural earning, and learning by composition. A model of cognitive development called BAIRN is described, and a final chapter reviews John Anderson's ACT theory and discusses how it can be used in intelligent tutoring systems, including one that teaches LISP programming skills. In addition to the editors, the contributors are Yuichiro Anzai (Hokkaido University, Japan), Paul Rosenbloom (Stanford) and Allen Newell (Carnegie-Mellon), Stellan Ohlsson (University of Pittsburgh), Clayton Lewis (University of Colorado, Boulder), Iain Wallace and Kevin Bluff (Deakon University, Australia), and John Anderson (Carnegie-Mellon). David Klahr is Professor and Head of the Department of Psychology at Carnegie-Mellon University. Pat Langley is Associate Professor, Department ofInformation and Computer Science, University of California, Irvine, and Robert Neches is Research Computer Scientist at University of Southern California Information Sciences Institute. "Production System Models of Learning and Development" is included in the series Computational Models of Cognition and Perception, edited by Jerome A. Feldman, Patrick J. Hayes, and David E.Rumelhart. A Bradford Book.