General purpose problem solving using simulated human judgement

Abstract

This paper presents an alternative or possible addition to techniques used in general purpose problem solvers. A technique described by Jeffrey and Ossorio to simulate human judgment is applied to general problem solving. Human judgments on the degree to which objects are important to processes, (solution methods,) are factor analyzed and formed into a judgment space of orthogonal vectors. This space is consulted to choose a solution method based on the attributes of the available objects. The result is a system which decides "how" to solve a problem in much the same way a person would.