[1] These formalized models can be used to further refine comprehensive theories of cognition and serve as the frameworks for useful artificial intelligence programs.
Successful cognitive architectures include ACT-R (Adaptive Control of Thought – Rational) and SOAR.
[2] The Institute for Creative Technologies defines a cognitive architecture as a "hypothesis about the fixed structures that provide a mind, whether in natural or artificial systems, and how they work together — in conjunction with knowledge and skills embodied within the architecture — to yield intelligent behavior in a diversity of complex environments.
Anderson's lab used the term to refer to the ACT theory as embodied in a collection of papers and designs.
In 1983 John R. Anderson published the seminal work in this area, entitled The Architecture of Cognition.
The theory of cognition outlined the structure of the various parts of the mind and made commitments to the use of rules, associative networks, and other aspects.
Biologically-inspired computing, on the other hand, takes a more bottom-up, decentralized approach; bio-inspired techniques often involve the method of specifying a set of simple generic rules or a set of simple nodes, from the interaction of which emerges the overall behavior.