10 Classics from Cognitive Science

The editorial board of Cognitive Science has identified several classic

articles that appeared in our journal over the last couple of decades. With
the permission of the Cognitive Science Society, the full text for these
articles is available here. Members of our editorial board have also
provided descriptions for why these articles were selected as
classics. Although many other articles could have been selected and may
be added in future lists, these articles were chosen because of their
impact, innovation, and importance in furthering theoretical development
in the field of cognitive science. Here is another group's list of 100
classics of cognitive science. Visit Lawrence Erlbaum's web page for
Cognitive Science for on-line access to back-issues. This access is
limited to members of the Cognitive Science Society. To join the society,
visit here.

1. Johnson-Laird, P. N. (1980). Mental models in cognitive

science. Cognitive Science, 4, 71-115.

This article postulates that mental models differ from visual images
and from propositional representations, and it presents evidence that
corroborates the differences. It argues that reasoners use
propositional representations of, say, spatial descriptions to construct
mental models. It also argues that mental models rather than formal
logic underlie syllogistic inference, e.g., some of the parents are
drivers, all of the drivers are scientists, therefore, some of the parents
are scientists. The article was the first in a journal to present a case
 for mental models as the end result of comprehension and as the
starting point of deductive reasoning. This idea led to many
subsequent investigations (see the mental models Website).
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2. Chi, M. T. H., Feltovich, P., & Glaser, R. (1981). Categorization and

representation of physics problems by experts and
novices. Cognitive Science, 5, 121-152.

This is an experimental investigation of how experts and novices

differ in the organization of their knowledge. Expertise among
physicists for classical mechanics is studied by formally measuring
how people talk about, sort, and solve physics problems. The
findings show that experts represent a given problem differently from
novices. That is, the experts represented a routine physics problem
according to its underlying principle, whereas novices based their
representation on the problem's literal features. This finding of deep
versus shallow representation paved the way for many later studies of
expertise in particular domains. In addition to developing techniques
for cognitive assessment that can be applied to almost any domain,
the discussions of schemas, mental models, and problem solving
skills have informed many subsequent analyses of educational
practice, training, and individual differences.
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3. Feldman, J. A., & Ballard, D. H. (1982). Connectionist models and

their properties. Cognitive Science, 6, 205-254.

Although several researchers had worked with neurally-inspired

 computational models before 1982, this article was among the first to
present a general and formal characterization of connectionist
models. In fact, it introduced the term "connectionist model" to
cognitive science. The authors provided formal results dealing with
winner-take-all networks, coarse-coding, and the control of
sequencing, and described the well known 100-time-step argument
for the need for massively parallel computation. The specific
approach taken by Feldman and Ballard is now represented by the
many structured or localist connectionist models in the field.
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4. Gentner, D. (1983). Structure-mapping: A theoretical framework for

analogy. Cognitive Science, 7, 155-170.

This paper introduces the structure-mapping theory of analogy and

similarity. Analogy is seen as a mapping of knowledge between two
domains that conveys that the same system of relations holds within
the target domain as within the base domain. In interpreting an
analogy, people seek to match relational structure; object
correspondences are determined by like roles in the common
relational structure, rather than by direct object-level similarities. The
mapping process is guided by the implicit constraints of structural
consistency - e.g., 1-1 correspondence between elements of the base
and elements of the target - and systematicity - a preference for
mapping predicates that belong to a connected system of matching
relations, rather than isolated predicates. The theory provides a
framework for differentiating kinds of similarity match, such as
analogy, literal similarity, and relational abstraction matches.
Structure-mapping has had a large influence on research in analogy
 and similarity and has informed research in broader arenas such as
learning and categorization.
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5. Rumelhart, D. E., & Zipser, D. (1985). Feature discovery by

competitive learning. Cognitive Science, 9, 75-112.

This article describes a novel algorithm for training neural networks

without requiring any external teacher or feedback. Instead, the
neural network becomes trained on the basis of the statistics latent in
the stimuli presented to the network. The algorithm works by
starting with homogenous, undifferentiated detectors. When an input
pattern is presented, the detector that is most similar to the pattern
adapts itself so that it becomes even more tuned to the pattern. The
remaining detectors are prevented from adapting to the pattern,
leaving them available to become specialized to other patterns. In
this manner, the algorithm achieves one of the primary goals of
cognitive science - the creation of systems that organize themselves
with training so that they exhibit richer structure than their original
starting configuration. Sample simulations apply the algorithm to
pattern formation and recognition, the automatic generation of
categories and features, and the integration of data-driven and top-
down influences on category formation.
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6. Larkin, J. H., & Simon, H. A. (1987). Why a diagram is (sometimes)

worth 10,000 word. Cognitive Science, 11, 65-99.

This article explores the different computational requirements and

 affordances of textual and diagrammatic information. Differences
between diagrams and informationally equivalent text passages are
framed in terms of search (accessing information), recognition
(matching information to knowledge in long-term memory), and
inference (creating new knowledge). Diagrams typically allow
dramatically more efficient recognition than do equivalent text
stimuli. Spatial grouping can also facilitate search processes for
diagrams. This research has had an impact on our basic
understanding of mental representations, in terms of what elements
are explicitly versus implicitly available in a representation, the
importance of describing representation/process PAIRS rather than
representations alone, and the cognitive uses of different classes of
representations. Practically, this research has provided guidelines for
determining how particular information should be conveyed to
maximize its impact and usefulness.
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7. Elman, J. L. (1990). Finding structure in time. Cognitive Science, 14,

179-211.

This article introduces the 'simple recurrent network' (SRN)

archecture, which has been widely applied in problems involving
serially ordered patterns. Traditional feedfoward networks learn to
map static inputs to outputs. However, there are many phenomena in
which time figures as a critical dimension, and for which recurrent
networks such as the SRN are useful. In the SRN, internal states
("hidden units") feed back on to themselves at successive time steps.
These recurrent connections provide the network with a memory that
can be used for solving problems in which there is temporal
 structure. A number of simulations are reported in this paper in
which the SRN is trained on a prediction task. In the course of
learning to predict various time series, the network learns things such
as the implicit word boundaries between letter strings, or the
semantic and syntactic categories that underlie an artificial grammar.
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8. Spelke, E. S. (1990). Principles of object perception. Cognitive

Science, 14, 29-56.

This article focuses on the capacities of human infants to perceive

objects as unitary, bounded, and persisting bodies. Special attention
is given to the problem of perceiving objects in natural visual arrays,
in which most objects are partly hidden by, and adjacent to, the
surfaces and objects that surround them, and in which objects enter
and leave the field of view as they, or the observer, move. Drawing
on experiments investigating infants' visual perception of adjacent
and partly occluded objects, infants' haptic perception of the objects,
and infants' apprehension of the persistence and identity of objects
that move fully out of view, Spelke proposes that object perception
results from an analysis of viewer-centered surface representations:
an analysis that accords with a set of spatio-temporal principles that
govern the behavior of all movable, solid bodies. The research
reported in this article has markedly influenced thinking and
subsequent research on the nature and development of object
representations.
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9. Jacobs, R. A., Jordan, M. I., & Barto, A. G. (1991). Task

 decomposition through competition in a modular connectionist
architecture - the what and where vision tasks. Cognitive Science, 15,
219-250.

This article studies the question of how different components of a

computational architecture can develop different functional
specializations. It describes a novel architecture consisting of
multiple neural networks that compete for the right to learn each data
item. Given an input pattern, the network whose output is closest to
the target output is allowed to do the most learning on that
item. Other networks learn little or nothing about the item. The
tendency of the architecture is to partition the set of data items so that
different networks learn different items and, thus, acquire different
functions. Sample simulations apply the architecture to the
identification and localization of an object depicted in a visual
image. A lesson of this work is that modularity or at least functional
specializations, need not be determined soley by genetic
factors. Instead, learning may also play a role in the functional
organization of a modular system.
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10. Hutchins E. (1995). How A Cockpit Remembers its Speeds.

Cognitive Science, 19, 265-288.

Do systems larger than single individuals qualify as "cognitive?" In

this article, Hutchins argued that they do. He supported his claim by
analyzing remembering by commercial airline cockpits, considered
as cognitive systems. He proposed "that rather than trying to map the
findings of cognitive psychological studies of individuals directly
 onto the individual pilots in the cockpit, we should map the
conceptualization of the cognitive system onto a new unit of analysis:
the cockpit as a whole." Hutchins provided such an analysis,
identifying ways in which cockpit operations are organized to include
use and construction of symbolic and indexical representations. Like
standard analyses of individual human cognition, Hutchins explained
successful remembering in terms of representations that are internal
in the cognitive system. However, these internal representations are
mainly observable in the cockpit, rather than entering the analysis
through subjects' verbal reports and the theorist's hypotheses, as in
analyses of individual human cognition. Hutchins's functional
analysis of remembering by the cockpit as a system provides
constraints on hypotheses about cognitive processes at the level of
individuals, the pilots. "The memory of the cockpit, however, is not
made primarily of pilot memory." Instead, as Hutchins showed,
remembering is a function of the system, achieved through
interaction of the pilots with the structures of material and
informational systems of their flying machine.
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