Discrimination nets, production systems and semantic networks: Elements of a unified framework

A number of formalisms have been used in cognitive science to account for cognition in general and learning in particular. While this variety denotes a healthy state of theoretical development, it somewhat hampers communication between researchers championing different approaches and makes comparison between theories difficult. In addition, it has the consequence that researchers tend to study cognitive phenomena best suited to their favorite formalism. It is therefore desirable to propose frameworks which span traditional formalisms. In this paper, we pursue two goals: first, to show how three (symbolic) formalisms widely used in theorizing about and in simulating human cognition—discrimination nets, semantic networks and production systems—may be used in a single, conceptually unified framework; and second to show how this framework can be used to develop a comprehensive theory of learning. Within this theory, learning is construed as (a) developing perceptual and conceptual discrimination nets, (b) adding semantic links, and (c) creating productions. We start by giving a brief description of each of these formalisms; we then describe a theoretical framework that incorporates the three formalisms, and show how these may coexist. Throughout this description, examples from chess, a highly studied field of expertise and a classical object of study in cognitive science, will be provided. These examples will illustrate how the framework can be worked out into a more detailed cognitive theory. Finally, we draw some theoretical consequences of the framework proposed here

The computational modeling of inferential and referential competence

Abstract

Challenges in Bridging Social Semantics and Formal Semantics on the Web

This paper describes several results of Wimmics, a research lab which names stands for: web-instrumented man-machine interactions, communities, and semantics. The approaches introduced here rely on graph-oriented knowledge representation, reasoning and operationalization to model and support actors, actions and interactions in web-based epistemic communities. The re-search results are applied to support and foster interactions in online communities and manage their resources

Supporting adaptiveness of cyber-physical processes through action-based formalisms

Cyber Physical Processes (CPPs) refer to a new generation of business processes enacted in many application environments (e.g., emergency management, smart manufacturing, etc.), in which the presence of Internet-of-Things devices and embedded ICT systems (e.g., smartphones, sensors, actuators) strongly influences the coordination of the real-world entities (e.g., humans, robots, etc.) inhabitating such environments. A Process Management System (PMS) employed for executing CPPs is required to automatically adapt its running processes to anomalous situations and exogenous events by minimising any human intervention. In this paper, we tackle this issue by introducing an approach and an adaptive Cognitive PMS, called SmartPM, which combines process execution monitoring, unanticipated exception detection and automated resolution strategies leveraging on three well-established action-based formalisms developed for reasoning about actions in Artificial Intelligence (AI), including the situation calculus, IndiGolog and automated planning. Interestingly, the use of SmartPM does not require any expertise of the internal working of the AI tools involved in the system

Scaling Construction Grammar up to Production Systems: the SCIM

While a great effort has concerned the development of fully integrated modular understanding systems, few researches have focused on the problem of unifying existing linguistic formalisms with cognitive processing models. The Situated Constructional Interpretation Model is one of these attempts. In this model, the notion of "construction" has been adapted in order to be able to mimic the behavior of Production Systems. The Construction Grammar approach establishes a model of the relations between linguistic forms and meaning, by the mean of constructions. The latter can be considered as pairings from a topologically structured space to an unstructured space, in some way a special kind of production rules

Ontologies, Mental Disorders and Prototypes

As it emerged from philosophical analyses and cognitive research, most concepts exhibit typicality effects, and resist to the efforts of defining them in terms of necessary and sufficient conditions. This holds also in the case of many medical concepts. This is a problem for the design of computer science ontologies, since knowledge representation formalisms commonly adopted in this field do not allow for the representation of concepts in terms of typical traits. However, the need of representing concepts in terms of typical traits concerns almost every domain of real world knowledge, including medical domains. In particular, in this article we take into account the domain of mental disorders, starting from the DSM-5 descriptions of some specific mental disorders. On this respect, we favor a hybrid approach to the representation of psychiatric concepts, in which ontology oriented formalisms are combined to a geometric representation of knowledge based on conceptual spaces

The Repercussions of Business Process Modeling Notations on Mental Load and Mental Effort

Over the last decade, plenty business process modeling notations emerged for the documentation of business processes in enterprises. During the learning of a modeling notation, an individual is confronted with a cognitive load that has an impact on the comprehension of a notation with its underlying formalisms and concepts. To address the cognitive load, this paper presents the results from an exploratory study, in which a sample of 94 participants, divided into novices, intermediates, and experts, needed to assess process models expressed in terms of eight different process modeling notations, i.e., BPMN 2.0, Declarative Process Modeling, eGantt Charts, EPCs, Flow Charts, IDEF3, Petri Nets, and UML Activity Diagrams. The study focus was set on the subjective comprehensibility and accessibility of process models reflecting participant's cognitive load (i.e., mental load and mental effort). Based on the cognitive load, a factor reflecting the mental difficulty for comprehending process models in different modeling notations was derived. The results indicate that established modeling notations from industry (e.g., BPMN) should be the first choice for enterprises when striving for process management. Moreover, study insights may be used to determine which modeling notations should be taught for an introduction in process modeling or which notation is useful to teach and train process modelers or analysts. \keywords{Business Process Modeling Notations, Cognitive Load, Mental Load, Mental Effort, Human-centered Desig

GTA: Groupware task analysis Modeling complexity

The task analysis methods discussed in this presentation stem from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and Ethnography (as applied for the design of Computer Supported Cooperative Work CSCW), different disciplines that often are considered conflicting approaches when applied to the same design problems. Both approaches have their strength and weakness, and an integration of them does add value to the early stages of design of cooperation technology. In order to develop an integrated method for groupware task analysis (GTA) a conceptual framework is presented that allows a systematic perspective on complex work phenomena. The framework features a triple focus, considering (a) people, (b) work, and (c) the situation. Integrating various task-modeling approaches requires vehicles for making design information explicit, for which an object oriented formalism will be suggested. GTA consists of a method and framework that have been developed during practical design exercises. Examples from some of these cases will illustrate our approach