The importance of representation Our goal is to explain human intelligence, by considering the kinds of representation and computation that enable people to make inferences and solve problems. In principle, computations can be done with many different kinds of representations, but in practice it is important to use representations that make for natural computational solutions to particular kinds of problems. Nouns are organized in terms of kind and part relations. E.g. a spaniel is a kind of dog which is a kind of animal. E.g. a claw is part of a foot which is part of a leg which is part of a dog.
Verbs are organized in terms of ways of doing, e.g. digging is one way of removing.
Yes, because spaniels are dogs and dogs have claws. Move up and down the kind and part hierarchies and do inference by inheritance. This should be more efficient than making inference by proving theorems in a logic-based system. Spreading activation starts with one or more concepts active, then activates those concepts linked to them. Spreading activation models can explain semantic priming, which occurs when a decision about one concept makes it easier to decide about another concept.