Thesis (M.Phil.) - University of Queensland, 2006. / Includes bibliography.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Akron, School of Communication, 2009. / "August, 2009." Title from electronic thesis title page (viewed 11/11/2009) Advisor, Andrew S. Rancer; Committee members, Carolyn M. Anderson, Phil R. Hoffman; School Director, Carolyn M. Anderson; Dean of the College, James M. Lynn; Dean of the Graduate School, George R. Newkome. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--UCLA, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 112-125).

No description available.

This thesis is concerned with reasoning by analogy within the context of auto-mated problem solving. In particular, we consider the provision of an analogical reasoning component to a resolution theorem proving system. The framework for reasoning by analogy which we use (called Basic APS) contains three major components -the finding of analogies (analogy matching), the construction of analogical plans, and the application of the plans to guide the search of a theorem prover. We first discuss the relationship of analogy to other machine learning techniques. We then develop programs for each of the component processes of Basic APS. First we consider analogy matching. We reconstruct, analyse and crticise two previous analogy matchers. We introduce the notion of analogy heuristics in order to understand the matchers. We find that we can explain the short-comings of the matchers in terms of analogy heuristics. We then develop a new analogy matching algorithm, based on flexible application of analogy heuristics, and demonstrate its superiority to the previous matchers. We go on to consider analogical plan construction. We describe procedures for constructing a plan for the solution of a problem, given the solution of a different problem and an analogy match between the two problems. Again, we compare our procedures with corresponding ones from previous systems. We then describe procedures for the execution of analogical plans. We demon-strate the procedures on a number of example analogies. The analogies involved are straightforward for a human, but the problems themselves involve.huge search spaees, if tackled directly using resolution. By comparison with unguided search, we demonstrate the dramatic reductfon in search entaile_d by the use of an ana-logical plan. We then consider some directions for development of our analogy systems, which have not yet been implemented. Firstly, towards more flexible and power-ful execution of analogical plans. Secondly, towards an analogy system which can improve its own ability to find and apply analogies over the course of experience.

The role of "believes" is identified by finding a unique and unparaphraseable use of the term that is integral to the structure of important forms of language. This role can only be roughly indicated here. Roughly, "believes" identifies someone's reasons for doing or thinking something or what he counts as success in certain activities, without committing the speaker to accepting them; and so it allows the possibility of mistake. Standard objections to dispositional accounts are reviewed and found unconvincing. The central difficulty is found to be that dispositional accounts give no satisfactory explanation of the fact what it is (part of) an explanation of action to cite the agent's beliefs. It is argued that causal accounts have the same deficiency, that the role or point of "believes" in language is not satisfactorily explained. It is concluded that neglect of this central question vitlates even the real strengths of these accounts. The relation between different questions about belief is explored, and analogous questions about other cases, especially artefacts, are considered. Explanations of actions are discussed to bring out the role of "believes." This appears in explaining the relation between the "point or purpose" of an action and the actions of which it consists at a lower level of description. "Believes" identifies what governs this relation while allowing the possibility of mistake. Ryle's claims about thinking are considered, and an interpretation of the notion of an adverbial verb is suggested. The central difficulty concerns the cases of the thinking of le Penseur or of Eucild. Although it seems important that we should be able to say what the constituents of thinking are here, we cannot do so, since the relevant vocabulary is not adapted to giving the constituents of anything. These activities have their own "objects" as well as their own criteria of success. Activities, "objects", and criteria of success are bound up together, and do not connect in any simple way with the vocabulary that we try to connect them with in asking what their constituents are. This far from unique. Music provides another relevant example. The last chapters examine various contexts in which "believes" is important. Topics considered are reasons, evaluations, assertions, belief and the will, internationality, and speech-act accounts. In each case particular doctrines are critically examined.

In this thesis I have a threefold purpose. I will attempt: (a) to present a generic design for a tool - the Argument Support Program - which can be of use in supporting the reasoning of archaeologists (and others especially, but not exclusively, in the humanities); (b) I will present a model of argumentation and debate as the theoretical orientation within which the model is developed; and, (c) I will suggest that this approach is a natural development of several strands of research within the artificial intelligence community. A tripartite model of argument is presented in terms of arguers, the argument structure produced and the argument domain or field. This model subsumes reasoning, interpretation and argument exchange or debate. It is maintained, further, that while this model is generally applicable, specific domains have particular styles of argument. The notion of argument style is discussed in terms of the types of reasoning used. The related concept of relevance in argument is discussed in terms of the specific tokens of these types which may be used in a particular argument. It is argued that archaeology is characterized, at least in part, by the use of argument by analogy and argument from theoretical principles or models. A design for a generic program - the Argument Support Program (ASP) - based on the theoretical principles is delineated. Details of the partial implementation of the model as a constrained debater in the domain of archaeology (ASP for archaeology or ASParch) are presented. Example runs which illustrate how the characterizing features of archaeology are dealt with are also presented as are examples of the various domain and system knowledge bases needed. The application of ASPs to other domains and areas such as literary criticism, legal reasoning and Darwinian theory is discussed. In the final chapter, the achievements and inadequacies of this research are summarized, possible reasons are presented for the inadequacies in the resulting system and future directions discussed.

There has been a great deal of research into students' use of examples when solving problems in textbooks. Much of this work has been within the framework of analogical problem solving (APS). Indeed many researchers believe they can build adequate models of how students learn and solve exercise problems by analogy to worked examples. In the first part of this thesis I argue that this view of problem solving from examples is inappropriate and often misleading. Most students learning a subject for the first time tend to imitate examples. Imitative Problem Solving UPS)is a weak form of analogical problem solving. APS accounts assume that a solver has a representation of an earlier problem in memory. The difficulties involved are accessing that source problem and adapting it to solve the current one. WS does not assume t at the source is represented in memory, and even when the source example is available( as in textbook examples), the student may not understand it well enough to be able to adapt it to new situations. The second part of the thesis presents an interpretation theory for analysing both texts and the behaviour of solvers using those texts to solve exercise problems. The third part applies the interpretation theory to the solution explanation of a simple algebra word problem. Where an example problem fails to map directly onto an exercise problem, or where inferences have to be made to understand it, the solver win be unable to imitate the example and hence will have difficulties in proportion to the mapping inequalities between the two problems. That is, the interpretation theory allows us to predict precisely where solvers will have difficulty using an example to solve an exercise problem of the same type. The final part presents experimental tests of these predictions. The results confirm that the interpretation theory analysis can correctly identify possible areas of difficulty for the student due to a) the way an example problem is structured, and b) the nature of the transfer task.

The transitive inference (TI) problem (i.e., if A > B and B > C, then A > C) has traditionally been considered a hallmark of logical reasoning. However, considerable debate exists regarding the psychological processes involved when individuals perform TI tasks. The current thesis therefore sought to further explore this issue with adult humans as the population sample. Following a review of the literature, the first empirical chapter, Chapter 2, adopted a traditional TI task and exposed participants to training and testing with a simultaneous discrimination paradigm. In addition, the chapter sought to examine the potential facilitative effects of awareness and repeated exposure to training and test phases on the emergence of TI. Results broadly demonstrated that awareness led to more accurate responses at test, and that for a number of participants, repeated exposure to training and test phases, allowed the targeted performances to emerge over time. Chapter 3 developed and determined the utility of a novel behaviour-analytic account of TI as a form of derived comparative relational responding. For the most part, findings revealed that the model has the potential to generate arbitrarily applicable comparative responding in adults, comparable to TI. However, findings from Chapter 3 also revealed that despite the implementation of a number of interventions, response accuracy was still weak on a number of the targeted relations. Chapter 4 developed a variant of the Relational Completion Procedure (RCP) to examine derived comparative responding to 'More-than' and 'Less-than' relations, as an extension of the behavioural account of TI adopted in Chapter 3. Findings revealed that, for the most part, the protocol was effective in establishing the targeted relations, and that the linearity (e.g., A < B, B < C) of training pairs was not found to effect the emergence of this pattern of responding. Chapter 5 sought to explore the transformation of discriminative functions via a 5- member relational network of 'More-than' and 'Less-than' relations. Findings revealed that, across four experiments, approximately half of the participants displayed the predicted patterns of performance. That is, half of the participants responded 'less' to the stimuli ranked lower in the network (A and B) and 'more' to the stimuli ranked higher in the network (D and E), on the basis of training with stimulus C. The utility of the current behaviour-analytic approach to the study of TI is discussed.

M.A. (Philosophy) / Please refer to full text to view abstract