A computational model of conscious and unconscious strategy discovery

This chapter deals with a computational model of conscious and conscious strategy discovery and advocates a triangulation strategy for attaining a better understanding of change mechanisms. This triangulation strategy involves going back and forth among traditional studies of age-related change, microgenetic studies of children's gleaming, and computer simulations that generate the changes documented in the other two approaches. The chapter describes a new computational model of conscious and unconscious strategy discovery. Apart from being a crucial component of one of the examples of the triangulation strategy, this simulation significantly extends previous models of strategy choice and discovery. A large majority of studies of cognitive development have been devoted to describe age-related changes. The studies of age-related change have succeeded in providing excellent descriptions of many aspects of cognitive growth. Each of these three approaches—descriptions of age-related change, descriptions of learning, and formal modeling—provides unique information critical to a well-grounded account of developmental change.