caa a22 4500 463177460 CHVBK 20180406164829.0 cr unu---uuuuu 170326e20071201xx s 000 0 eng 10.1007/s10339-007-0178-7 doi (NATIONALLICENCE)springer-10.1007/s10339-007-0178-7 Artificial organisms as tools for the development of psychological theory: Tolman's lesson [Elektronische Daten] [Orazio Miglino, Onofrio Gigliotta, Maurizio Cardaci, Michela Ponticorvo] In the 1930s and 1940s, Edward Tolman developed a psychological theory of spatial orientation in rats and humans. He expressed his theory as an automaton (the "schematic sowbug”) or what today we would call an "artificial organism.” With the technology of the day, he could not implement his model. Nonetheless, he used it to develop empirical predictions which tested with animals in the laboratory. This way of proceeding was in line with scientific practice dating back to Galileo. The way psychologists use artificial organisms in their work today breaks with this tradition. Modern "artificial organisms” are constructed a posteriori, working from experimental or ethological observations. As a result, researchers can use them to confirm a theoretical model or to simulate its operation. But they make no contribution to the actual building of models. In this paper, we try to return to Tolman's original strategy: implementing his theory of "vicarious trial and error” in a simulated robot, forecasting the robot's behavior and conducting experiments that verify or falsify these predictions. Marta Olivetti Belardinelli and Springer-Verlag, 2007 Schematic sowbug nationallicence Cognitive modeling nationallicence Artificial organisms nationallicence Tolman's theory nationallicence Miglino Orazio Department of Relational Sciences, University of Naples "Federico II”, Naples, Italy aut Gigliotta Onofrio Institute of the Sciences and Technologies of Knowledge, National Research Council, Rome, Italy aut Cardaci Maurizio Department of Psychology and Interdepartmental Centre of Knowledge Technologies, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy aut Ponticorvo Michela Department of Linguistics, University of Calabria, Cosenza, Italy aut Cognitive Processing Springer-Verlag 8/4(2007-12-01), 261-277 1612-4782 8:4<261 2007 8 10339 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-007-0178-7 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI 1 research-article jats NATIONALLICENCE 856 40 https://doi.org/10.1007/s10339-007-0178-7 text/html Onlinezugriff via DOI NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Miglino Orazio Department of Relational Sciences, University of Naples "Federico II”, Naples, Italy aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Gigliotta Onofrio Institute of the Sciences and Technologies of Knowledge, National Research Council, Rome, Italy aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Cardaci Maurizio Department of Psychology and Interdepartmental Centre of Knowledge Technologies, University of Palermo, Palermo, Italy aut NATIONALLICENCE 700 1- Ponticorvo Michela Department of Linguistics, University of Calabria, Cosenza, Italy aut NATIONALLICENCE 773 0- Cognitive Processing Springer-Verlag 8/4(2007-12-01), 261-277 1612-4782 8:4<261 2007 8 10339 Metadata rights reserved Springer special CC-BY-NC licence nationallicence BK010053 XK010053 XK010000 NATIONALLICENCE NATIONALLICENCE NL-springer