Components of a Cognitive Theory of Problem Solving and Discovery with Law Encoding Diagrams

Contents

The representational components for a cognitive theory of Law Encoding Diagrams, LEDs, are considered in this paper. Examples of problem solving and scientific discovery with LEDs are discussed and used to introduce the four schemas that appear necessary to account for the many different forms of reasoning that are possible with this class of representational systems. Possible forms of processing with LEDs are illustrated by analysing the diagrammatic nature of Galileo’s kinematics discoveries.