I've always been fascinated by curiosity. Like invention, it seems to integrate all the merits that make homo sapiens sapient. (Of special import to me after all my zoology classes seemed to dwell on that difference to excess).<p>I think too few past investigations of cognition, especially AI-motivated and abstract / computational models of cognition, have approached the topic from assessment of human higher cognitive functions like creativity, invention, and genius. It seems there'd be a lot of value toward understanding the mechanisms of cognition by recognizing patterns of extraordinary performance and then decomposing them to consistuents (as neurologists do clinically), rather than starting with the constituents and trying to compose them into higher models of cognition (as biologists or AI folks do, systematically or synthetically, respectively).<p>IMHO, AI approaches to cognitive synthesis have been largely a no-go. Perhaps more dissection of high-level cognition could help?<p>I do know some folks have pursued research agendas somewhat like this -- cognitive scientists like Doug Hofstadter, or cognitive psychologists like John Anderson (ACT-R) and AI engineers like John Laird (Soar) or cognitive modellers like Thad Polk.<p>But has anyone seen continuing progress toward more than building bottom-up synthetic models that demonstrate an occasional human-like cognitive pattern, or bottom-up observational psych/neuro research papers on phenomenology, using this focus? I'm not enough attuned to recent work to know.