ABSTRACT
In the early 1960s, Allen Newell and Herbert Simon created a computer program they called General Problem Solver (GPS) the purpose of which was not only to solve logic problems, but to solve them in the same way that a human being would. Naturally, the success of GPS as a theory of human problem solving depends heavily on the kind of problem the subject is asked to solve. As Newell and Simon note, transforming one logical formula into another requires a means-end analysis. The experimental methodology Sternberg uses to uncover the mind’s programs is perhaps more reliable than the method of “thinking out loud” on which Newell and Simon depend. The goal of cognitive science is to describe the programs that determine the behavior of the mind’s computational mechanisms. Computational theories of vision constitute a dominant approach to explaining vision in standard cognitive science.
