Reference: Wilkins, D. C. Formulation of Cognitive Diagnosis as Heuristic Classification. Pittsburgh, 1987.
Abstract: An apprenticeship learining system improves itself in the course of observing problem solving actions and analyzing each action using underlying theories of the domain [MMS85]. In many expert domains, the key task that confronts an apprenticeship learining system is cognitive diagnosis, which is the task of infering explanations of observed human behavior [CBN, OL85]. My talk will describe an approach to automating the process of cognitive diagnosis for taks solved using the heuristic classification method of hypothesis-directed reasoning [Cla85]. Validation of the approach is being carried out in the domain of medical diagnosis, modeling human problem solvers against the NEOMYCIN knowledge base [Cla84]. Psychological studies have shown hypothesis- directed reasoning to be a cognitively plausible model of medical problem solving [ESS78].