Normative Models in the Study of Cognition.

The paper describes a normative-descriptive strategy for cognitive research. In a set of illustrative experiments based on models from physics, subjects were asked to judge the positions and weights necessary to maintain equilibrium in mechanical displays of varying complexity. Whenever possible subjects' judgments were accounted for through the appropriate normative models; otherwise descriptive models were generated from the normative models and from the results of the other experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]