ABSTRACT
This chapter discusses a familiar class of computational models that have played an influential role in artificial intelligence, computational psychology, and cognitive science – what are often called "classical" or "symbolic" models. It characterizes such models, and discusses their relationship to some closely associated ideas. The chapter sketches some putative virtues of classical models. It discusses some of the dimensions along which these models vary, and provide brief illustrations. The chapter explores some of the more prominent criticisms levelled against the classical modeling paradigm. The expression "classical computation" only became common currency in cognitive science during the 1980s, largely as a means of contrasting the symbolic tradition with the burgeoning field of connectionist cognitive science. Classical computational models (CCMs), in the sense most relevant to the present chapter, are a species of computational, process model. CCMs are best construed as a broad family of process models that share a core set of characteristics.
