ABSTRACT
We were asked to “tell George Miller how the mind works from our particular standpoint.” We have chosen, instead, to answer the question, “What is the role of language in cognition?” We decided not to tell George how the mind works, because one of us has recently composed a statement of considerable length on just that topic (Newell, 1990). Yet, the core of the detailed answer given there, namely, Soar as a unified theory of cognition, seems to many cognitive scientists to be rooted primarily in artificial intelligence (Al) and cognitive psychology, hence, not rooted in language. George would surely object if that were really so. The relationship between language and cognition has been a central concern for George throughout his career. We are sure that he takes an answer to our question as central to any theory of mind — as central to “how the mind works.” We agree with him. So much so that we thought the most interesting thing we could do was to tackle that relationship from “our particular standpoint,” which is to say, from a standpoint that is grounded in computation and cognition.
