Soar: A Cognitive Architecture in Perspective

Soar: A Cognitive Architecture in Perspectiverepresents a European perspective onSoarwith the exception of the special contribution from Allen Newell arguing forUnified Theories of Cognition.
The various papers derive from the work of the Soar Research Group that has been active at the University of Groningen, The Netherlands, since 1987. The work reported here has been inspired in particular by two topics that precipitated the group's interest inSoarin the first place -- road user behavior and the temporal organization of behavior, more specifically planning. At the same time, the various contributions go well beyond the simple use ofSoaras a convenient medium for modeling human cognitive activity. In every paper one or more fundamental issues are raised that touch upon the very nature and consistency ofSoaras an intelligent architecture. As a result the reader will learn about the operator implementation problem, chunking, multitasking, the need to constrain the depth of the goal stack, and induction, etc.
Soaris still at a relatively early stage of development. It does, nevertheless, constitute an important breakthrough in the area of computer architectures for general intelligence.Soarshows one important direction that future efforts to build intelligent systems should take if they aim for a comprehensive, and psychologically meaningful, theory of cognition. This is argued in a powerful way by Newell in his contribution to this volume. For this reason, theSoarsystem will probably play an important integrative role within cognitive science in bringing together important subdomains of psychology, computer science, linguistics, and the neurosciences. AlthoughSoaris not the only `architecture for intelligence', it is one of the most advanced and theoretically best motivated architectures presently available.
Soar: A Cognitive Architecture in Perspectiveis of special interest to researchers in the domains of cognitive science, computer science and artificial intelligence, cognitive psychology, and the philosophy of mind.