Rich, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by a *useful* computer algorithm, but it's worth noting that psychological inquiry has produced computer algorithms since the 1950's, the most famous early examples can be found in the work of Newell and Simon. More recently, a variety of algorithms can be found in the domain of deductive inference (see, e.g., Lance Rips's 1993 book, The Psychology of Proof (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press)). Phil Johnson-Laird has also produced algorithms motivated by his mental model theory of deductive inference (that he has also applied to probabilistic and even causal inference). In the domain of causal inference, Cheng's work has been incorporated into many algorithms (see Charles Twardy's response to your message for references). John Anderson has written several books describing algorithms based on production rule architectures and Bayesian inference that incorporate principles of memory, problem-solving, categorization, and language. The human categorization literature is full of mathematical models of human classification that have been implemented as computer programs (see the work of, e.g., Nosofsky, Krushke, Ashby, and more). As you can see, the list goes on and on.
By the way, the "neural nets" that inspired the connectionist revolution of the mid-1980s were not inspired primarily by the brain but rather by cognitive phenomena. The best-known book of the time, Rumelhart and McClelland's volumes on Parallel Distributed Processing, has very little to say about the brain but includes many important models of cognitive phenomena involving, for example, memory and classification. steven On Wednesday, November 19, 2003, at 08:42 PM, Rich Neapolitan wrote: > I realized I phrased my previous question poorly, as I am receiving > responses to a question other than my intent. I am quite familiar with > Kahneman, Pearl, etc. My curiosity is whether anyone has created a > useful > computer algorithm by studying how humans reason (e.g. perhaps in the > case > of bounded rationality). > > Also, I rule out neural nets because they are based on how the brain > works > at a biological level not at a cognitive level. > > Thanks, > Rich > > Steven Sloman Cognitive & Linguistic Sciences Brown University, Box 1978 Providence, RI 02912 email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.cog.brown.edu/~sloman
