Iris van Rooij - How Cognitive Scientists are Not Dealing with Intractability (But Could Be)
13 March 2012
Many computational models of human cognition are known to be intractable (e.g., NP-hard). This means that, even if the models may be able to describe human behavior in simplified lab settings, the postulated computations do not seem to scale to situations of real-world complexity. This theoretical problem is not specific to any particular cognitive domain or to any particular modeling framework. For instance, intractable models can be found in the domains of vision, decision making, reasoning, analogizing, similarity, action planning and communication; and they can be found in the symbolic, connectionist, probabilistic, and dynamical modeling paradigms.
Given the pervasiveness of intractability, how are cognitive scientists dealing with it? I will argue in my talk that cognitive scientists are not dealing with it in a coherent and productive way. Moreover, by not facing the problem head-on, cognitive science may be missing out on an opportunity to probe the unique ways in which human minds/brains cope with the complexities of the world that they live in. I present illustrative examples of an approach that utilizes intractability rather than sweep it under the rug. I will explain how this approach may lay the foundations for the important goal of scaling models of cognition from the lab to the real world.
Last modified: | 13 June 2019 1.40 p.m. |
More news
-
17 June 2025
ERC Advanced grants for three UG researchers
The European Research Council has awarded ERC Advanced grants to Prof. Inga Kamp, Prof. Wouter Roos and Prof. Syuzanna Harutyunyan.
-
13 June 2025
Team 'Lord of the Roads' second at RDW Self Driving Challenge
The University of the North team 'Lord of the Roads', in which students from educational institutions Noorderpoort, Hanzehogeschool and the University of Groningen collaborated, came second in the RDW Self Driving Challenge (SDC). The team competed...
-
12 June 2025
Those most affected by modern agriculture
Farmers only grow a limited number of crops these days, which has significant consequences for the animals that live there. Raymond Klaassen researches what adjustments farmers could make to improve the conditions for the species most affected by...