Looking forward and looking backward: Cognitive and experiential search

We used computer simulations to examine the role and interrelationship betw een search processes that are forward-looking, based on actors' cognitive m ap of action-outcome linkages, and those that are backward-looking, or expe rience based. Cognition was modeled as a simple, low-dimensional representa tion of a more complex, higher dimensional fitness landscape. Results show that, although crude, these representations still act as a powerful guide t o initial search efforts and usefully constrain the direction of subsequent experiential search. Changing a cognitive representation itself can act as an important mode of adaptation, effectively resulting in the sequential a llocation of attention to different facets of the environment. This virtue of shifting cognitive representation, however, may be offset by the loss of tacit knowledge associated with the prior cognition.(.)