Foundations of Knowledge Acquisition

The two volumes of "Foundations of Knowledge Acquisition" document the recent progress of basic research in knowledge acquisition sponsored by the Office of Naval Research. In this volume, significant progress in machine learning is reported along a variety of fronts. Chapters include work in analogical reasoning; induction and discovery; learning and planning; learning by competition, using genetic algorithms; and theoretical limitations. Knowledge acquisition as pursued under the ARI was a coordinated research thrust into both machine learning and human learning. Chapters in the accompanying volume "Cognitive Models of Complex Learning" include summaries of work by cognitive scientists who do computational modelling of human learning. In fact, an accomplishment of research previously sponsored by ONR's Cognitive Science Program was insight into the knowledge and skills that distinguish human novices from human experts in various domains; the cognitive interest in the ARI was then to characterize how the transition from novice to expert actually takes place.