Qualitative Reasoning Group
Encyclopedia
The Qualitative Reasoning Group (QRG) at Northwestern University
, led by Ken Forbus
conducts artificial intelligence
and cognitive science
research on qualitative representations and reasoning, as well as analogical reasoning and learning. The analogy work has led to the structure mapping engine
, a simulation of Dedre Gentner
's structure-mapping theory of analogy and similarity.
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston and Chicago, Illinois, USA. Northwestern has eleven undergraduate, graduate, and professional schools offering 124 undergraduate degrees and 145 graduate and professional degrees....
, led by Ken Forbus
Ken Forbus
Ken Forbus is Walter P. Murphy Professor of Computer Science and Professor of Education at Northwestern University. He is notable for his work in qualitative process theory, automated sketch understanding and on automated analogical reasoning. He developed the structure mapping engine based on the...
conducts artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the intelligence of machines and the branch of computer science that aims to create it. AI textbooks define the field as "the study and design of intelligent agents" where an intelligent agent is a system that perceives its environment and takes actions that maximize its...
and 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...
research on qualitative representations and reasoning, as well as analogical reasoning and learning. The analogy work has led to the structure mapping engine
Structure Mapping Engine
In artificial intelligence and cognitive science, the structure mapping engine is an implementation in software of an algorithm for analogical matching based on the psychological theory of Dedre Gentner [1983]. The basis of Gentner's structure-mapping idea is that an analogy is a mapping of...
, a simulation of Dedre Gentner
Dedre Gentner
Dedre Gentner is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Northwestern University. She is a prominent researcher in the study of analogical reasoning. Her work on structure-mapping theory was foundational for the development of the structure mapping engine by Ken Forbus...
's structure-mapping theory of analogy and similarity.