A key assumption of
cognitive science is the ambition to provide a unified theory of mind that
reveals the qualitative form of human cognition and behavior.
Cognitive agents (or cognitive models) are cognitive theory
applications.
These agents are computer simulations that can predict and
explain human thought.
Cognitive agents must complete a real-world task that
involves many different kinds of cognition, including interaction.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is a method of simulating human
intelligence.
These simulations aren't necessarily fully interactive or
comprehensive.
An interactive cognitive agent is designed to cover all of
the actions that a user engages in when using a current display-oriented
interface.
Interactive cognitive agents try to think and behave like
people, making them ideal candidates for surrogate users.
Noninteractive cognitive agents just provide a trace of the
mind's cognitive steps, but interactive cognitive agents give more thorough and
precise simulations.
This is accomplished through interactive cognitive agents
engaging directly with the screen-as-world.
Models may now communicate with uninstrumented interfaces on
both the computer where the model is executing and on distant machines.
Improved interaction not only supports a wider variety of
activity, but it also improves the model's accuracy and representation of human
actions on tasks that require interaction.
A cognitive architecture, knowledge, and a perception-motor
module are the three components of an interactive cognitive agent.
Cognitive architectures are infrastructures that give a set
of fixed computational processes that represent the fixed cognitive mechanisms
that create behavior for all activities.
They give a mechanism to combine and apply cognitive science
theory as a fixed set.
A cognitive model is generated when knowledge is added to a
cognitive architecture.
To interact with the environment, the perception-motor
module regulates visual and motor output.
Cognitive agents that are interactive can view the screen,
push keys, and move and click the mouse.
Through their comprehensive coverage of theory and capacity
to produce actions, interactive cognitive agents contribute to cognitive
research, human-computer interaction, automation (interface engineering),
education, and assistive technology.
You may also want to read more about Artificial Intelligence here.
See also:
Cognitive Architectures.
Further Reading:
Newell, Allen. 1990. Unified Theories of Cognition. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Ritter, Frank E., Farnaz Tehranchi, and Jacob D. Oury. 2018. “ACT-R: A Cognitive Architecture for Modeling Cognition.” Wiley Interdisciplinary Reviews: Cognitive Science 10, no. 4: 1–19.
