This dissertation presents a model of the knowledge a person has about the spatial structure of a large-scale environment: the "cognitive map." The functions of the cognitive map are to assimilate new information about the environment, to represent the current position, and to answer route-finding and relative-position problems. This model (called the TOUR model) analyzes the cognitive map in terms of symbolic descriptions of the environment and operations on those descriptions. Knowledge about a particular environment is represented in terms of route descriptions, a topological network of paths and places, multiple frames of reference for relative positions, dividing boundaries, and a structure of containing regions. The current position is described by the "You Are Here" pointer, which acts as a working memory and a focus of attention. Operations on the cognitive map are performed by inference rules which act to transfer information among different descriptions and the "You Are Here"...

Imagine having your own self-contained knowledge manipulator in a portable package the size and shape of an ordinary notebook. How would you use it if it had enough power to outrace your senses of sight and hearing, enough capacity to store for later retrieval thousands of page-equivalents

There has been a body of emerging research describing students ’ understanding of complex systems. This research has primarily studied students understanding of complex phenomena in science. However, complex phenomena are also pervasive in everyday life. Children observe and participate in them daily. How do they reason about such ordinary complex phenomena? In this study, we investigate students’ reasoning about everyday complex phenomena. We report on interviews and a classroom participatory simulation with ten sixth-grade students about ordinary events that could be construed as emergent, such as social situations in which the social pattern emerges from the participating students ’ individual actions. We have observed a widespread student-initiated strategy for making sense of complex phenomena. We call this strategy “mid level construction, ” the formation of small groups of individuals. Students form these mid-level groups either by aggregating individuals or by subdividing the whole group. We describe and characterize this mid-level strategy and relate it to the students ’ expressed understanding of “complex systems” principles. The results are discussed with respect to (a) students ’ strengths in understanding everyday complex social systems; (b) the utility of mid-level groups in forming an understanding of complex systems; (c) agent-based and aggregate forms of reasoning about complex systems.