Computational theory of mind

The view that mental processes are computations: information-processing operations realized by physical systems, especially brains. It treats cognition as governed by formal rules and representations.

Mental representation: A state or structure that stands for something and can be used in thought or action. Computational accounts explain cognition partly through representations that operations manipulate.
Embodied cognition: The view that cognition depends fundamentally on bodily capacities and interactions with the environment. It challenges accounts that treat thought as computation separable from bodily engagement.
Alan Turing: British mathematician and computer scientist who formalized computation and helped establish theoretical computer science. His account of machine computation became a model for computational theories of thought.
Cognitive architecture: A general framework specifying the structures and processes underlying a cognitive system. Architectures turn broad computational claims into models of organized mental functions.
Intentionality: The property of mental states of being about, or directed toward, objects and states of affairs. A computational model must explain how formal operations acquire aboutness.
Symbolic artificial intelligence: An approach to artificial intelligence that represents information with symbols and manipulates them using explicit rules. It models thought as rule-governed operations over symbolic representations.
Dynamical systems theory: The study of systems whose states change over time according to interacting variables and dynamical laws. Some theorists model cognition as continuous dynamics rather than discrete computation.
Warren McCulloch: American neurophysiologist who studied neural networks and their relation to logic and computation. His work helped connect neural activity with formal information processing.
ACT-R: A cognitive architecture that models human cognition using declarative knowledge, production rules, and memory systems. It implements a detailed computational account of human cognitive tasks.
Consciousness: The subjective experience of awareness, including what it feels like to perceive or think. Whether computation explains subjective experience remains disputed.

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