In this paper, Simon describes contemporary information processing approaches to the study of learning and thinking, and discusses the relevance of these studies to the distinction between rote and meaningful learning. Before defining the basic terminology of information processing research, he provides a brief literature review, describing some…

The research reported in this paper was designed to analyze the incidence of use of higher-order rules by students solving geometric construction problems. A carefully selected set of construction problems was subjected to rigorous a priori analysis by mathematics educators to determine what basic and second-order rules might be used by able high…

The SPADE theory, which uses linguistic formalisms to model the planning and debugging processes of computer programming, was simultaneously developed and tested in three separate contexts--computer uses in education, automatic programming (a traditional artificial intelligence arena), and protocol analysis (the domain of information processing…

Most current information processing theories of cognition and memory share one common feature: the structure (state-space) of memory is fixed and retrieval from memory involves searching through that structure. Learning, where it is treated at all, involves transforming one such structure into another. This form of representation is questioned and…

This paper discusses the theoretical problem of matching and abstraction of concepts as the processes occur in human minds, and the structures used to represent these processes for use in automated, knowledge based systems. A basic premise of the paper is that hierarchies play a crucial role in structuring knowledge and in solving problems. Data…

The goal of the present project was to identify the types of knowledge necessary and useful for competent troubleshooting/debugging and to examine how new approaches to formal instruction might influence the attainment of competence by students. The research focused on the role of general strategies in troubleshooting/debugging, and how they might…

Motivated by the brain, neural networks are a right-brained approach to artificial intelligence that is used to recognize patterns based on previous training. In practice, one would not program an expert system to recognize a pattern and one would not train a neural network to make decisions from rules; but one could combine the best features of…

This paper reviews current models of problem solving to identify results relevant to teachers or instructional developers. Four areas are covered: information processing models, approaches stressing human abilities and factors, creative problem solving models, and other aspects of problem solving. Part of a theme issue on intelligence. (Author/SJL)

The cognitive revolution began in the 1950s as researchers began to move away from the study of knowledge acquisition and behaviorism to the study of information and the way it is processed. Four factors are discussed in chapter 1 as contributing to the increase in popularity of the "cognitive revolution" (increasing enthusiasm for the…

This study, based on the analysis of extensive interview data using concepts and models drawn from cognitive studies of human behavior and from artificial intelligence studies of computer information processing, highlights several information-processing differences between strong and weak students. Data were collected from 300 students in grades 3…

Traces the history and function of State, Operator, And Result (SOAR), a general-purpose artificial intelligence program for solving problems. The SOAR can "chunk" the result of a subgoal and learn from previous experiences. The SOAR could be applied to various expert systems. (YP)

The work of a three-year series of experimental studies of human cognition is summarized in this report. Proglem solving and learning in man-machine interaction was investigated, as well as relevant variables and processes. The work included four separate projects: (1) computer-aided problem solving, (2) computer-aided instruction techniques, (3)…