The Cognitive Model

This chapter discusses that case-based reasoning derives from a view of understanding as an explanation process. Schank and Abelson proposed that the general knowledge about situations is recorded in scripts and that scripts allow one to set up expectations about what one will hear about, which, in turn, allows him or her to infer the relationships between the things he or she hears. However, scripts provide only one kind of knowledge to one as he or she understands, and he or she also uses knowledge about goals, plans, interpersonal relationships, the roles people play, character traits, and so on in their understanding. The premise in Schank's dynamic memory is that remembering, understanding, experiencing, and learning cannot be separated from each other. A dynamic memory changes as a result of its experiences. It understands by attempting to find the closest thing in memory to what it is trying to understand and then adapting its understanding of the old item to fit the new one.