General Problem Solver (GPS)
Biography
Allen Newell described himself as a "scientist"; he was best known for his work in artificial intelligence. Newell did his graduate work at Princeton. He joined the faculty of the Carnegie Institute of Technology in 1961 and remained there for the remainder of his distinguished career. He was obsessed with understanding human cognition, and sought a unified theory of cognition. Newell wrote and co-authored more than 250 publications, and ten books.
Theory
The information processing theories attempt to understand human cognitive processes by using computer processing as a model. These theories did not assume that humans were regarded as "computers" but attempted to create computer programs that would accomplish problem solving tasks that humans can perform.
Many of Newell's and Simon's ideas were derived from Tolman , who influenced many of the later cognitive learning theorists. Newell developed the General Problem Solver around 1957. It was a computer simulation theory which provided a core set of processes that could be used to solve different kinds of problems. His subsequent work centered on SOAR, an architecture for intelligent problem solving and learning. Soar provides a basis for continued research on knowledge acquisition systems, a unified theory of human cognition, human-computer interaction, and the efficiency of production systems.
The computer program was capable of simulating a first approximation to well defined problems. Once a problem or goal was defined, there were a number of processes which could be applied to the problem, including dividing into sub-goals or sub-problems, transforming one object into another, making objects more similar, or applying operations to an object. Applications included logic, geometry, trigonometry, symbolic logic, word problems, and chess.
Newell, Simon, and J.C. Shaw delved deeply into cognitive processes, and published several articles on the subject.
Learning Theory Bibliography
Sahakian, 1976
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Kearsley, G. (n.d.) GPS (A. Newell & H. Simon). Retrieved November 9, /2002 from http://tip.psychology.org/simon.html