Experience, memory, and reasoning /

This edited volume includes 13 papers authored by noted computer scientists and presented at a 1984 workshop on theoretical issues in general information processing. Chapters are loosely organized into three sections: memory and knowledge representation; the use of experience in making decisions; and natural language understanding. Many contributors offer progress reports on the development of their latest Artificial Intelligence (AI) programs designed to simulate such diverse human behaviors as learning mazes, making medical diagnoses, negotiating disputes, reasoning in legal cases, and disambiguating prose. Some essays are heavily laden with AI terminology and notation; some authors discuss more general issues associated with the storage and retrieval of information from human memory without reference to computer models. Overall, the difficulty and readability of the chapters varies widely. An introductory chapter, section introductions, individual chapter reference lists, and combined authors and subject indexes are included. Given the preliminary nature of the computer models described, the availability of much of the reported information in other sources, and the rapid changes in this area, this volume may be a reasonable acquisition only for those libraries serving advanced undergraduate and graduate students in computer science.-T.J. Thieman, The College of St. Catherine