Bayesian Cognitive Science is a rapidly-growing approach to cognitive science

Cognitive science

Cognitive science is the interdisciplinary scientific study of mind and its processes. It examines what cognition is, what it does and how it works. It includes research on how information is processed , represented, and transformed in behaviour, nervous system or machine...

 concerned with rational models, in the particular sense of "Bayesian rationality".

This work often consists of testing the hypothesis that cognitive systems behave like rational Bayesian agents in particular types of tasks (past work has applied this idea to categorization

Categorization

Categorization is the process in which ideas and objects are recognized, differentiated and understood. Categorization implies that objects are grouped into categories, usually for some specific purpose. Ideally, a category illuminates a relationship between the subjects and objects of knowledge...

, language, motor control

Motor control

Motor control are information processing related activities carried out by the central nervous system that organize the musculoskeletal system to create coordinated movements and skilled actions...

, sequence learning

Sequence learning

Sequence learning is inherent to human ability because it is an integrated part of conscious and nonconscious learning as well as activities. Sequences of information or sequences of actions are used in various everyday tasks: "from sequencing sounds in speech, to sequencing movements in typing or...

, reinforcement learning

Reinforcement learning

Inspired by behaviorist psychology, reinforcement learning is an area of machine learning in computer science, concerned with how an agent ought to take actions in an environment so as to maximize some notion of cumulative reward...

, theory of mind

Theory of mind

Theory of mind is the ability to attribute mental states—beliefs, intents, desires, pretending, knowledge, etc.—to oneself and others and to understand that others have beliefs, desires and intentions that are different from one's own...

). At other times, Bayesian rationality is assumed, and the goal is to infer the knowledge that agents have, and the mental representations that they use.

It is important to contrast this with the ordinary use of Bayesian inference

Bayesian inference

In statistics, Bayesian inference is a method of statistical inference. It is often used in science and engineering to determine model parameters, make predictions about unknown variables, and to perform model selection...

in cognitive science, which is independent of rational modeling (see e.g. Michael Lee's work).