Architectural/Rational Analysis Dichotomy
An important issue in the study of Cognitive Science is
the effect of the cognitive architecture on observable behavior.
Anderson, in
Architectures for Intelligence, Chapter 1, takes the
position that the specific architecture underlying an
organism is unimportant, and instead behavioral mechanisms
can be derived purely from the environment. He describes
this technique as "rational analysis." The basis for his
position is that, through evolution, behavior is optimized
to the external environment and the goals of the organism.
Other cognitive scientists, such as
Newell and
Simon, view rational analysis as extreme. One criticism of this
approach is that one cannot know for certain the goals of an organism.
Also, evolution does not arrive at an absolute maximum, only a
local maximum. Instead, it is more important to determine which
primitive architectural mechanisms are present in human cognition,
and how they combine to give rise to intelligent behavior.
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