A Qualitative Comparative Evaluation of Cognitive and Generative Theories

Abstract: Evaluation is a critical activity associated with any theory. Yet this has proven to be an exceptionally challenging activity for theories based on cognitive architectures. For an overlapping set of reasons, evaluation can also be challenging for theories based on generative neural architectures. This dual challenge is approached here by leveraging a broad perspective on theory evaluation to yield a wide-ranging, albeit qualitative, comparison of whole-mind-oriented cognitive and generative architectures and the full systems that are based on these architectures.