bessiere@imag.imag.fr (Pierre Bessiere) (12/05/90)
Hello evrybody,
A copy of a paper appeared in conference COGNITIVA90 held in Madrid in november
1990, is now avalaible by ftp.
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Title: TOWARD A SYNTHETIC COGNITIVE PARADIGM: PROBABILISTIC INFERENCE
Abstract:
Cognitive science is a very active field of scientific interest.
It turns out to be a "melting pot" of ideas coming from very different
areas. One of the principal hopes is that some synthetic cognitive
paradigms will emerge from this interdisciplinary "brain storming".
The goal of this paper is to answer the question: " Given the state
of the art, is there any hints indicating the emergence of such synthetic
paradigms?" The main thesis of the paper is that there is a good candidate,
namely, the PROBABILISTIC INFERENCE paradigm.
In support of the above thesis the structure of the paper is as follows:
- in a first part, we identify five criteria to qualify as a synthetic
cognitive paradigm (validity, self-consistency, competence, feasability
and mimetic power);
- in the second section, the principles of probabilistic inference
are reviewed and justifications of validity and self-consistency of this
paradigm are given (Marr's computational level);
- then, the competence criterion is dicussed, considering the efficiency
of probabilistic inference for dealing with the different cognitive riddles
and analyzing the relationships of probabilistic inference with several of the
usual connexionist formalisms (Marr's algorithmic level);
- the criteria of feasibility (condition of computer implementation)
and mimetic power (adequation with what is known of the architecture of
the nervous system) are finally considered in the fourth part (Marr's
implementation level).
As a conclusion, it will appear that probabilistic inference is at least
a very intersting framework to get a synthetic overview of a number of
works in the area and to identify and formalize the most puzzling questions.
Some of these questions will be listed. In fact, probabilistic inference
will appear finally to be able to play the same role for computational
cognitive science that formal logic has played for classical symbolic
Artificial Intelligence: a sound mathematical foundation serving as
a guide line, as a constant reference and as a source of inspiration.
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The following procedure should give you a copy of the paper:
ftp 129.88.32.1
Name ( ... ): anonymous
Password: anything
ftp> cd pub/SYMPA
ftp> dir
ftp> bin
ftp> get Proba-Inf.ps.Z
ftp> quit
(!) uncompress < Proba-Inf.ps.Z | lpr -l -Pprinter
Please send any questions or comments to:
Pierre BESSIERE
***************
IMAG/LGI phone:
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E-Mail: bessiere@imag.imag.fr
C'est au savant moderne que convient, plus qu'a tout autre, l'austere
conseil de Kipling: "Si tu peux voir s'ecrouler soudain l'ouvrage de ta vie,
et te remettre au travail, si tu peux souffrir, lutter, mourrir sans murmurer,
tu seras un homme , mon fils." Dans l'oeuvre de la science seulement on peut
aimer ce qu on detruit, on peut continuer le passe en le niant, on peut venerer
son maitre en le contredisant. GASTON BACHELARD