problem solving

more buried treasure --

The Cognitive Science Millenium Project
The one hundred most influential works in cognitive science from the 20th century

6. Human Problem Solving
by A. Newall and H. A. Simon

The book describes Newell and Simon's attempt to build a computerized "General Problem Solver" which actually failed. They discovered that human problem soving requires more domain knowledge than a computer can implement. The book documents the efforts they made in programming the computer to solve problems such as the "tower of hanoi" and what they found about the nature of the human problem solving process. They introduce the concept of problem solving as a search in the problem space and the use of heuristics such as means-ends analysis. The studies reported in the book pave the way for using computers as a tool and an analogy to study human cognition.

If not the most cited paper in Cognitive Science, it is surely very near the top. A critical source for many developments in the field of problem solving.

Domain knowledge is knowledge stored in long-term memory, not on the internet.


How Knowledge Helps by Daniel Willingham