Intelligence

Intelligence: Its Organization and Development is an account of the theory of intelligence, with emphasis on its organization and development. It proposes a formalized approach to intelligence, one that is sufficiently precise and abstract to allow a working model to be built on modern computers, but that is also sufficiently flexible and factual to allow an interpretation and unification of some of the findings and concepts of psychology. Comprised of five chapters, this book begins with an overview of a model that reflects some psychological reality and at the same time builds computer-based systems that display some degree of intelligence. Several bodies of psychological knowledge and theory are reorganized and synthesized into this single model, which is amenable to rapid, simple, and efficient computation. The cell assembly theory of Donald Hebb is simplified to its bare essentials, and Jean Piaget's theory of the development of sensorimotor intelligence is made more concrete and explicit. Concepts such as drive and reinforcement are subsumed by the inclusion of the orienting and defense responses as variable controls on channel capacity. The structure of learning and memory is also considered, along with major sensorimotor systems. This monograph should be a valuable resource for both psychologists and computer scientists interested in intelligence.