1974
@techreport{Min1974,
vgclass = {report},
author = {Marvin Minsky},
title = {A Framework for Representing Knowledge},
type = {MIT-AI Laboratory Memo},
number = {306},
institution = {MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory},
address = {200 (545) Technology Square, MIT Building NE43,
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA},
month = {June},
year = {1974},
note = {(Reprinted in The Psychology of Computer Vision, P.
Winston (Ed.), McGraw-Hill, 1975)},
url = {http://web.media.mit.edu/~minsky/papers/Frames/frames.html},
abstract = {It seems to me that the ingredients of most theories both
in Artificial Intelligence and in Psychology have been on the whole
too minute, local, and unstructured to account---either practically or
phenomenologically---for the effectiveness of common-sense thought.
The ``chunks'' of reasoning, language, memory, and ``perception''
ought to be larger and more structured; their factual and procedural
contents must be more intimately connected in order to explain the
apparent power and speed of mental activities.
Similar feelings seem to be emerging in several centers working on
theories of intelligence. They take one form in the proposal of Papert
and myself (1972) to sub-structure knowledge into ``micro-worlds'';
another form in the ``Problem-spaces'' of Newell and Simon (1972); and
yet another in new, large structures that theorists like Schank
(1974), Abelson (1974), and Norman (1972) assign to linguistic
objects. I see all these as moving away from the traditional attempts
both by behavioristic psychologists and by logic-oriented students of
Artificial Intelligence in trying to represent knowledge as
collections of separate, simple fragments.
I try here to bring together several of these issues by pretending to
have a unified, coherent theory. The paper raises more questions than
it answers, and I have tried to note the theory's deficiencies.
Here is the essence of the theory: When one encounters a new situation
(or makes a substantial change in one's view of the present problem)
one selects from memory a structure called a Frame. This is a
remembered framework to be adapted to fit reality by changing details
as necessary \ldots},
}