David M. W. Powers (1996) Optimality: Efficacy, Efficiency and Effectiveness
. Psycoloquy: 7(10) Optimal Cognition (3)
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Psycoloquy 7(10): Optimality: Efficacy, Efficiency and Effectiveness
OPTIMALITY: EFFICACY, EFFICIENCY AND EFFECTIVENESS
Commentary on Worden on Optimal-Cognition
David M. W. Powers
AI and Cog. Sci. Group
Department of Computer Science
Flinders University of South Australia
powers@acm.org
Abstract
Worden's definition of optimality hides two components:
efficacy in satisfying the needs of the organism, and effectiveness
or robustness across a range of environmental contexts. There is
however, in between, another criterion which relates to the
efficiency of the solution in terms of the organisms resources,
which is closely related to the parsimony of the model employed.
In addition, there is a question as to how significant and useful
the bounds are which Worden proposes, but he assumes that they are
fairly tight and his proof of monotonicity assumes a rather
simplistic model. Part of the problem here is the failure to
recognize efficiency directly or to allow direct comparison of
orthogonal mechanisms.
Keywords
Bayes, conditioning, evolution, foraging, navigation,
neural nets, optimality, representation, situated action.
References
- Deane, Paul D. (1992) Grammar in Mind an Brain: Explorations in Cognitive Syntax, Cognitive Linguistics Research 2, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter.
- Harnad, Stevan (1990) "The Symbol Grounding Problem", Physica D, 335-346.
- Langley, Pat (1996) Elements of Machine Learning, San Francisco: Morgan Kaufmann.
- Kohonen, Teuvo (1995) Self-Organizing Maps, Berlin/New York: Springer.
- Manna, Zohar (1974) Mathematical Theory of Computation", New York: McGraw Hill.
- Worden, R.P. (1996) An Optimal Yardstick for Cognition. PSYCOLOQUY 7(1) optimal-cognition.1.worden.