ArticleTopics in cognitive science2020
How Intractability Spans the Cognitive and Evolutionary Levels of Explanation.
Article in Topics in cognitive science, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 6 papers.
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Who cites it
6 citing papers in PubMed.
- Confidence in naturalistic decision making.Neuroscience of consciousness · 2026Article
- When prediction fails: a computational complexity view of stress.Frontiers in veterinary science · 2026Article
- From Empirical Problem-Solving to Theoretical Problem-Finding Perspectives on the Cognitive Sciences.Computational brain & behavior · 2024Article
- Reclaiming AI as a Theoretical Tool for Cognitive Science.Computational brain & behavior · 2024Article
- Theory Before the Test: How to Build High-Verisimilitude Explanatory Theories in Psychological Science.Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science · 2021Article
- Editors' Review and Introduction: Levels of Explanation in Cognitive Science: From Molecules to Culture.Topics in cognitive science · 2020Article
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The challenge of explaining how cognition can be tractably realized is widely recognized. Classical rationality is thought to be intractable due to its assumptions of optimization and/or domain generality, and proposed solutions therefore drop one or both of these assumptions. We consider three such proposals: Resource-Rationality, the Adaptive Toolbox theory, and Massive Modularity. All three seek to ensure the tractability of cognition by shifting part of the explanation from the cognitive to the evolutionary level: Evolution is responsible for producing the tractable architecture. We consider the three proposals and show that, in each case, the intractability challenge is not thereby resolved, but only relocated from the cognitive level to the evolutionary level. We explain how non-classical accounts do not currently have the upper hand on the new playing field.
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