Modelling number competences -- an example of 'thinky programming' for learners.

This one makes use of Poprulebase, an extension to Pop11 designed for construction of rule-based systems and used in the SimAgent toolkit.

This tutorial does not claim to show how to model what goes on in the mind of a child learning about numbers but does aim to show how one's scientific understanding of the nature of the process can be enhanced by trying to build models of various aspects of the competences. This could help to guide both experimental and modelling research investigating how the learning and development processes occur in children. It could also be a precursor to the design of future robots with human-like intelligence (still a very long way to go).

Since this video was made several of the rules in that file have had comments added to the code.

The video was unscripted and there are at least two mistakes in portions of the presentation relating the program's demonstrated behaviour to the code. One mistake was to use a version of the code that included an unnecessary local variable. Another mistake was to choose the wrong rule to illustrate how one of the replies had been generated, because there are a number of slightly different rules.

The original tutorial recordings are hosted here (in .ogv format):

I am not an expert pod-caster, so there will be many flaws. I hope to learn from experience and from feedback from users.

Author: Aaron Sloman

[aaronsloman]

In the overview I forgot to mention that this tutorial uses some of the ideas in Chapter 8 of "The Computer Revolution in Philosophy" (1978). The chapter (like the whole book) is on-line
"On learning about numbers: Problems and Speculations" (Search for the book title).

[aaronsloman]

The 1978 book "The computer revolution in philosophy" is now available in a new, free, online edition in html and PDF here:
(This free online book will be updated from time to time. NB It does not aim to be a general introduction to either AI or philosophy, merely a discussion of some of the deep, previously unobvious, connections between them.)