Anderson & Lebiere/The Newell Test: BBS Call for Commentators

Dear Dr. Qwerty, Below is a link to the forthcoming BBS target article The Newell Test for a Theory of Mind by John R. Anderson and Christian Lebiere Carnegie Mellon University http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Anderson/Referees/ This article has been accepted for publication in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS), an international, interdisciplinary journal providing Open Peer Commentary on important and controversial current research in the biobehavioral and cognitive sciences. Commentators must be BBS Associates or suggested by a BBS Associate. To be considered as a commentator for this article, to suggest other appropriate commentators, or for information about how to become a BBS Associate, please reply by EMAIL within three (3) weeks to: calls(a)bbsonline.org The Calls are sent to 10,000 BBS Associates, so there is no expectation (indeed, it would be calamitous) that each recipient should comment on every occasion! Hence there is no need to reply except if you wish to comment, or to suggest someone to comment. If you are not a BBS Associate, please approach a current BBS Associate (there are currently over 10,000 worldwide) who is familiar with your work to nominate you. All past BBS authors, referees and commentators are eligible to become BBS Associates. An electronic list of current BBS Associates is available at this location to help you select a name: http://www.bbsonline.org/Instructions/assoclist.html (please note that this list is being updated) If no current BBS Associate knows your work, please send us your Curriculum Vitae and BBS will circulate it to appropriate Associates to ask whether they would be prepared to nominate you. (In the meantime, your name, address and email address will be entered into our database as an unaffiliated investigator.) ======================================================================= IMPORTANT To help us put together a balanced list of commentators, please give some indication of the aspects of the topic on which you would bring your areas of expertise to bear if you were selected as a commentator. To help you decide whether you would be an appropriate commentator for this article, an electronic draft is retrievable from the online BBSPrints Archive, at the URL that follows the abstract below. _______________________________________________________________________ The Newell Test for a Theory of Mind John R. Anderson Department of Psychology – BH345D Carnegie Mellon University Christian Lebiere Human Computer Interaction Institute Carnegie Mellon University ABSTRACT: Newell (1980, 1990) proposed that cognitive theories be developed trying to satisfy multiple criteria to avoid theoretical myopia. He provided two overlapping lists of 13 criteria that the human cognitive architecture would have to satisfy to be functional. We have distilled these into 12: flexible behavior, real-time performance, adaptive behavior, vast knowledge base, dynamic behavior, knowledge integration, natural language, learning, development, evolution, and brain realization. There would be greater theoretical progress if we evaluated theories by a broad set of criteria such as these and attended to the weaknesses such evaluations revealed. To illustrate how theories can be evaluated we apply them to both classical connectionism (McClelland & Rumelhart, 1986; Rumelhart & McClelland, 1986) and the ACT-R theory (Anderson & Lebiere, 1998). The strengths of classical connectionism on this test derive from its intense effort in addressing empirical phenomena in domains like language and cognitive development. Its weaknesses derive from its failure to acknowledge a symbolic level to thought. In contrast, ACT-R includes both symbolic and subsymbolic components. The strengths of the ACT-R derive from its tight integration of the symbolic with the subsymbolic. Its weaknesses largely derive from its failure as yet to adequately engage in intensive analyses of issues related to certain criteria on Newell’s list KEYWORDS: Cognitive Architecture; Connectionism; Hybrid Systems; Language Learning; Symbolic Systems http://www.bbsonline.org/Preprints/Anderson/Referees/ ====================================================================== IMPORTANT Please do not prepare a commentary yet. Just let us know, after having inspected it, what relevant expertise you feel you would bring to bear on what aspect of the article. We will then let you know whether it was possible to include your name on the final formal list of invitees. ======================================================================= *** SUPPLEMENTARY ANNOUNCEMENT *** (1) Call for Book Nominations for BBS Multiple Book Review In the past, Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) had only been able to do 1-2 BBS multiple book treatments per year, because of our limited annual page quota. BBS's new expanded page quota will make it possible for us to increase the number of books we treat per year, so this is an excellent time for BBS Associates and biobehavioral/cognitive scientists in general to nominate books you would like to see accorded BBS multiple book review. (Authors may self-nominate, but books can only be selected on the basis of multiple nominations.) It would be very helpful if you indicated in what way a BBS Multiple Book Review of the book(s) you nominate would be useful to the field (and of course a rich list of potential reviewers would be the best evidence of its potential impact!). *-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-*-* Please note: Your email address has been added to our user database for Calls for Commentators, the reason you received this email. 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