FORWARD VERSUS BACKWARD REASONING

A search procedure must find a path between initial and goal states.

 There are two directions in which a search process could proceed.

(1) Reason forward from the initial states: Being form the root of the search tree. General the next level of the tree by finding all the rules whose left sides match the root node, and use their right sides to generate the siblings. Repeat the process until a configuration that matches the goal state is generated.

(2) Reason forward from the goal state(s): Begin building a search tree starting with the goal configuration(s) at the root. Generate the next level of the tree by finding all the rules whose right sides match with the root node. Use the left sides of the rules to generate the new nodes. Continue until a node that matches the start state is generated. This method of chaining backward from the desired final state is called goal directed reasoning or back tracing.

Selection of forward reasoning or backward reasoning depends on which direction offers less branching factor and justifies its reasoning process to the user. Most of the search techniques can be used to search either forward or backward. One exception is the means-ends analysis technique which proceeds by reducing differences between current and goal states, sometimes reasoning forward and sometimes backward.

The following are the factors which determine the choice of direction for a particular problem.

1. Are there more possible start states on goal states? We would like to move from the smaller set of states to the larger set of states.

2. In which direction is the branching factor (that is, their average number of nodes that can be reached directly from a single node) greater ? we would lime to proceed in the direction with the lower branching factor.

3. Will the program be asked to justify its reasoning process to a user ? If so, it is important to proceed in the direction that corresponds more closely with the way the user will think.

4. What kind of event is going to trigger a problem-solving episode? If it is

the arrival of a new factor, forward reasoning makes sends. If it is a query

to which a response is desired, backward reasoning is more natural.