Relations between knowledge engineering and cognitive science: From import/export to a truly interdisciplinary knowledge acquisition enterprise

Abstract

Knowledge Engineering is generally known as the field that is responsible for the analysis and design of expert systems and is thus concerned with representing and implementing the expertise of a chosen application domain in a computer system. Research on cognition or cognitive science, on the other hand, is performed as a basic science, mostly within the disciplines of artificial intelligence, psychology and linguistics. It investigates the mental states and processes of humans by modelling them with a computer system and combining analytic and empirical viewpoints. Early on, knowledge acquisition was known as the activity of making explicit the human knowledge that is relevant for performing a task, so that it can be represented and become operational in an expert system. Knowledge acquisition and the field of knowledge engineering are consequently closely related to human cognition, which is studied in cognitive science. The specific relationship between knowledge engineering and cognitive science has changed over the years and therefore needs to be reconsidered in future expert system developments.