Modeling Folk Knowledge as Expert Systems

There are striking parallels between ideas developed in the study of cognitive systems by anthropologists and the modeling of expertise in artificial intelligence research. These parallels suggest that expert system architectures can provide effective means to formulate rigorous models for theories about native expertise and so-called cultural competence. We illustrate how such modeling may be done with theprogram, BA TES (Bisayan Address Term Expert System), which recasts the analysis ofBisayan address terms by Geoghegan into an expert system. The expert system was used both to examine the logic ofGeoghegan 's argument and to formulate an alternative model for linking an address term with addressee. Expert systems, we suggest, mayprovide a methodfor examining rigorously what otherwise are more loosely stated, verbal arguments. [folk knowledge, expert systems, cognition, computers, culture]