Premium
A production system model for the induction of mathematical functions
Author(s) -
Langley Pat
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
behavioral science
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.371
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1099-1743
pISSN - 0005-7940
DOI - 10.1002/bs.3830240206
Subject(s) - cognition , production (economics) , subject (documents) , space (punctuation) , test (biology) , psychology , cognitive psychology , computer science , cognitive science , ecology , neuroscience , biology , library science , economics , macroeconomics , operating system
This article deals with cognitive or decision‐making behavior of individual human beings—living systems at the organism level. College students were asked to induce mathematical functions that explained certain data. Unlike previous studies, subjects gathered their own data. As a result, most subjects searched a planning space rather than using the less efficient generate and test strategy observed earlier. Subjects selected data which were closely tied to the hypotheses they were considering at the time. The verbal protocols of one subject were analyzed in terms of Simon and Lea's (1974) General Rule Induction framework, and modeled in terms of a production system. The model achieved a good fit at a high level, but was less successful in explaining the details of the subject's performance. However, support was lent to both the Simon and Lea framework and to production system explanations of human cognition.