A Canvas for Thought

A Common Model of Cognition needs to be open so as to encompass a broad range of approaches and provide a firm fundament to which researchers who study one particular aspect of cognition at more detail can refer. It should also be open to incorporate new findings even, or in particular, if they come from an unconventional angle. A recent cognitive systems experiment has surprisingly shown that there is a fundamental link between logic and analogous representations. This paper discusses a field of functionality called here the Canvas, comprising or overlapping what is called in other models the Visual Buffer, the Visuospatial Sketchpad, the Spatial Visual System, or Imagery, leveraging this recent result. The paper suggests that a module like the Canvas is a fundamental component for any model of cognition and of crucial importance to understanding the origins of higher cognitive abilities, such as language or geometry. The paper also demonstrates, how a fine-level research result benefits from the Common Model as a common context within which fine-level research can be embedded, relieving the author from having to provide a full cognitive architecture beyond the aspect studied.