Cognitive Science

Cognitive Science, in contrast to Artificial Intelligence (AI), is interested precisely in what does go on inside peoples' heads when we think, and learn and do all the other intelligent activities that make us human beings. The method that Cognitive Scientists largely use is to devise theories of what they believe people do in performing some task or other (e.g. playing chess), and then to model this theory as a working computer program. If the program then performs the task IN A SIMILAR WAY TO HUMANS then it is considered to be psychologically plausible, and a likely candidate for the actual mechanisms performed internally by humans. Some researchers, notably John Anderson, go further and do detailed comparisons of the behaviours (protocols) and timings performed by people in ensuring that the model is genuinely psychologically plausible. But, in many cases the tasks are so complex, that just getting a program to perform them is worthwhile for its own sake.

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