Conceptual Spaces for Cognitive Architectures: A Lingua Franca for
  Different Levels of Representation
  During the last decades, many cognitive architectures (CAs) have been
realized adopting different assumptions about the organization and the
representation of their knowledge level. Some of them (e.g. SOAR [Laird
(2012)]) adopt a classical symbolic approach, some (e.g. LEABRA [O'Reilly and
Munakata (2000)]) are based on a purely connectionist model, while others (e.g.
CLARION [Sun (2006)] adopt a hybrid approach combining connectionist and
symbolic representational levels. Additionally, some attempts (e.g. biSOAR)
trying to extend the representational capacities of CAs by integrating
diagrammatical representations and reasoning are also available [Kurup and
Chandrasekaran (2007)]. In this paper we propose a reflection on the role that
Conceptual Spaces, a framework developed by Peter G\"ardenfors [G\"ardenfors
(2000)] more than fifteen years ago, can play in the current development of the
Knowledge Level in Cognitive Systems and Architectures. In particular, we claim
that Conceptual Spaces offer a lingua franca that allows to unify and
generalize many aspects of the symbolic, sub-symbolic and diagrammatic
approaches (by overcoming some of their typical problems) and to integrate them
on a common ground. In doing so we extend and detail some of the arguments
explored by G\"ardenfors [G\"ardenfors (1997)] for defending the need of a
conceptual, intermediate, representation level between the symbolic and the
sub-symbolic one.
