Logic and Cognition: Special Issue of Best Papers of the ESSLLI 2012 Workshop

The explanatory power of logic is vast and therefore it has proved a valuable tool formanydisciplines,includingthebuilding-blocksofcognitivescience,suchasphiloso-phy, computer science, mathematics, artificial intelligence, and linguistics. Logic hasagreattrackrecordinprovidinginterestinginsightsbymeansofformalization,andassuch it is very useful in disambiguating psychological theories. Logically formalizedcognitive theories are not only the source of unequivocal experimental hypotheses,buttheyalsolendthemselvesnaturallytocomputationalmodeling.Mostimportantly,modern logic has at its service a rich variety of tools to assess and compare suchpsychological theories. This toolbox can be utilized in evaluating cognitive modelsalong the following dimensions:(a) logical relationships, for example, incompatibility or identity of models;(b) explanatory power, for example, what can be expressed by means of a model?(c) computationalplausibility,forexample,arecomputationspostulatedbycognitivemodels tractable, do they scale-up?In this way, logic can play a major role in the process of psychological explanation.For some interesting examples, see Stenning and van Lambalgen (2008).Marr (1983) has argued that any particular task computed by a cognitive system mustultimately be analyzed at three levels of explanation (in order of decreasing abstrac-tion):