Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems, Tübingen72076, Germany.
Departments of Psychology and Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey08544,
Behav Brain Sci. 2019 Feb 4;43:e1. doi: 10.1017/S0140525X1900061X.
Modeling human cognition is challenging because there are infinitely many mechanisms that can generate any given observation. Some researchers address this by constraining the hypothesis space through assumptions about what the human mind can and cannot do, while others constrain it through principles of rationality and adaptation. Recent work in economics, psychology, neuroscience, and linguistics has begun to integrate both approaches by augmenting rational models with cognitive constraints, incorporating rational principles into cognitive architectures, and applying optimality principles to understanding neural representations. We identify the rational use of limited resources as a unifying principle underlying these diverse approaches, expressing it in a new cognitive modeling paradigm called resource-rational analysis. The integration of rational principles with realistic cognitive constraints makes resource-rational analysis a promising framework for reverse-engineering cognitive mechanisms and representations. It has already shed new light on the debate about human rationality and can be leveraged to revisit classic questions of cognitive psychology within a principled computational framework. We demonstrate that resource-rational models can reconcile the mind's most impressive cognitive skills with people's ostensive irrationality. Resource-rational analysis also provides a new way to connect psychological theory more deeply with artificial intelligence, economics, neuroscience, and linguistics.
人类认知建模具有挑战性，因为有无数种机制可以生成任何给定的观察结果。一些研究人员通过对人类思维能够和不能做什么的假设来约束假设空间，而另一些研究人员则通过理性和适应性原则来约束它。经济学、心理学、神经科学和语言学的最新研究开始通过用认知约束来增强理性模型，将理性原则纳入认知架构，以及应用最优性原则来理解神经表示，从而整合这两种方法。我们将理性地利用有限资源确定为这些不同方法的一个统一原则，并在一个名为资源理性分析的新认知建模范例中表达了这一原则。理性原则与现实认知约束的结合使资源理性分析成为反向工程认知机制和表示的有前途的框架。它已经为关于人类理性的辩论提供了新的视角，并可以在一个有原则的计算框架内重新审视认知心理学的经典问题。我们证明，资源理性模型可以将思维最令人印象深刻的认知技能与人们明显的非理性行为联系起来。资源理性分析还为更深入地将心理学理论与人工智能、经济学、神经科学和语言学联系起来提供了一种新方法。
