Dr. Allen Newell made significant contributions to the field of artificial intelligence. He received his PhD from Carnegie Mellon University in 1957. Newell's research focused on understanding human problem solving and building intelligent systems. Some of his major accomplishments included developing the General Problem Solver algorithm, the Information Processing Languages, and the production system language OPS5. He also helped pioneer the use of thinking-aloud protocols to test theories of human thinking. Newell received numerous honors for his work, including the ACM A.M. Turing Award with Herbert Simon in 1975.

1. Dr.Allen Newell
Presented By
Nabin Raj Dahal
M.Tech in IT
Kathmandu University
1

2. Introduction
 March 19, 1927 - July 19, 1992
 BS, Physics (Stanford University, 1949); PhD
(Carnegie Institute of Technology, Graduate
School of Industrial Administration, 1957
 US Navy (1943-45); RAND Corporation (1950-
1961); Carnegie-Mellon University (1955-
1992:graduate student, 1955-57, Professor of
Computer Science and Psychology, 1961-1992)
2

3. About Newell
 He did not follow his father into medicine, and
he inherited his father’s taste for research and
his broad intellectual interests
 His central goal was to understand the
cognitive architecture of the human mind and
how it enabled humans to solve problems
3

4. Newell and AI
 In September 1954 he attended a seminar at
RAND described a running computer program
that learned to recognize letters and other
patterns.
 He thought that intelligent adaptive systems
could be built which will far more complex than
anything yet done.
 The idea of heuristic problem-solving impressed
him
 Humans must use simplified rules—heuristics—
to guide selective searches for solutions.4

5. Contributions
 THINKING-ALOUD PROTOCOLS
 THE GENERAL PROBLEM SOLVER (GPS)
 THE INFORMATION PROCESSING LANGUAGES
(IPLS)
 PRODUCTION SYSTEM LANGUAGES (OPS5)
 CHESS: THE NSS PROGRAM
 HUMAN PROBLEM SOLVING
5

6. Major Contributions
 THINKING-ALOUD PROTOCOLS
 testing a theory of human thinking
 instructs subject to think aloud while performing
problem-solving tasks
 A program of laboratory experimentation using
thinking-aloud methods was launched by the
beginning of 1957
 a decade later Allen and Don Waterman made it the
first
6

7. Major Contributions
 CHESS:
 He wrote "The Chess Machine: An Example of Dealing with
a Complex Task by Adaptation" (1955)
 Outline of an imaginative design for a computer program
to play chess in humanoid manner
 Incorporating notation of goals, aspiration levels for
terminating search, satisfying with "good enough" moves,
multidimensional evaluation functions, the generation of
sub goals to implement goals, and something like best
first search.
 The design was never implemented, but ideas were later
borrowed from it for use in the NSS chess program in
1958. 7

8. Awards and Honors
 1971 John Danz Lecturer, University of Washington
 1971 Harry Goode Memorial Award, American Federation of
Information Processing Societies
 1972 Elected to member of the United States National Academy of
Sciences
 1972 Elected to Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
 1975 A. M. Turing Award (with Herbert A. Simon), Association for
Computing Machinery
 1976-77 Guggenheim Fellowship, John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation
 1979 Alexander C. Williams Jr. Award (with William C. Biel, Robert
Chapman and John L.Kennedy), Human Factors Society
 1980 Elected to member of the United States National Academy of
Engineering
 1980 First President, American Association for Artificial Intelligence8

9. Awards and Honors
 1981 Charter recipient of the Computer Pioneer Award from the IEEE
Computer Society
 1985 Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award, American Psychological
Association
 1986 Doctor of Science (Honorary), University of Pennsylvania
 1987 William James Lectures, Harvard University
 1989 Award for Research Excellence, International Joint Conference on
Artificial Intelligence
 1989 Doctor in the Behavioral and Social Sciences (Honorary), University of
Groningen, Netherlands
 1989 William James Fellow Award (charter recipient), American Psychological
Society
 1990 IEEE Emanuel R. Piore Award
 1990 IEEE W.R.G. Baker Prize Paper Award
 1992 U.S. National Medal of Science
 1992 The Franklin Institute’s Louis E. Levy Medal
9

10. References
 http://www.acm.org
 http://www.nap.edu
 http://en.Wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Newell
 http://maturing.acn.org/award_winers/newell_316775
5.cfm
10

11. THANK YOU
11