Hierarchical Skills and Cognitive Architectures

Abstract

In this paper, we examine approaches to representing and utilizing hierarchical skills within the context of a cognitive architecture.We review responses to this issue by three established frameworks -ACT-R, Soar, and Prodigy -then present an alternative we have developed within Icarus, another candidate architecture.Unlike most earlier systems, Icarus lets skills refer directly to their subskills and communicate within a single recognize-act cycle.This assumption has implications for the number of cycles required to complete complex tasks.We illustrate our approach with the domain of multi-column subtraction, then discuss related methods and directions for future work in this area.