ABSTRACT
This chapter talks about the set of three informal meta-principles pertaining to all cognitive phenomena. The first of these principles is referred as the Parsimony of Mind Meta-Principle. The meta-principle asserts that organisms have a need to simplify information from their internal and external environments. The second meta-principle is termed the Bounded-Optimality Classification Meta-principle. This principle asserts that organisms classify information optimally given the limitations of the cognitive capacities directly involved in the classification process. The third meta-principle, named the Invariance-gestalt Meta-principle, points at a need for coherence in the part of observers. The fourth principle, the Complexity Reduction-Rate Principle, characterizes the nature of complexity reduction for any categorical stimulus. The fifth principle highlights a possible but secondary factor influencing conceptual behavior termed structural equilibrium. The sixth principle, named the Information-Complexity Principle, defines information as the rate of change of concept-learning difficulty. The seventh principle is referred to as the Conceptual-Choice Principle.
