Intractability is a growing concern across the cognitive sciences: while many models of cognition can describe and predict human behavior in the lab it remains unclear how these models can scale to situations of real-world complexity. Cognition and Intractability is the first book to provide an accessible introduction to computational complexity analysis and its application to questions of intractability in cognitive science. Covering both classical and parameterized complexity analysis it introduces the mathematical concepts and proof techniques that can be used to test one''s intuition of (in)tractability. It also describes how these tools can be applied to cognitive modeling to deal with intractability and its ramifications in a systematic way. Aimed at students and researchers in philosophy cognitive neuroscience psychology artificial intelligence and linguistics who want to build a firm understanding of intractability and its implications in their modeling work it is an ideal resource for teaching or self-study. Language: English