In this essay, I explore how cognitive science could illuminate the concept of beauty. Two results from the extensive literature on aesthetics guide my discussion. As the term "beauty" is overextended in general usage, I choose as my starting point the notion of "perfect form." Aesthetic theorists are in reasonable agreement about the criteria for…

This article reviews current methods for evaluating models in the cognitive sciences, including theoretically based approaches, such as Bayes factors and minimum description length measures; simulation approaches, including model mimicry evaluations; and practical approaches, such as validation and generalization measures. This article argues…