Theories of abstraction
Fausto Giunchiglia, Adolfo Villafiorita, Toby Walsh · 1997
ion Fausto Giunchiglia, Adolfo Villafiorita, and Toby Walsh November 1997 Technical Report MRG/DIST # 97-0051 universit`a di genova facolt`a di ingegneria dipartimento informatica sistemistica telematica Theories of Abstraction F. Giunchiglia 1;2 A. Villafiorita 1 T. Walsh 3 [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] 1 IRST, Localit`a Pant'e di Povo, Trento, Italy 2 DISA, University of Trento, Trento, Italy 3 Dept of Computer Science, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, Scotland December 18, 1997 Abstract This article surveys the field of Artificial Intelligence for theories of abstraction. We identify several unifying themes and argue that, even though these theories make different representational choices, they are all trying to capture the same intuitive ideas. Progress has also been made in understanding the reduction in search brought by abstraction. In this paper, we demonstrate how these theories of abstraction have helped comprehend th...