frame problem
a technical difficulty arising in artificial intelligence and computational models of human cognition and involving the specification of the persistence of states that form the context in which thought takes place. The frame problem is essentially a question of how to use formal logic to specify or describe efficiently what remains unchanged in a given situation involving change, that is, what are the noneffects of a particular action on the properties of a situation (e.g., painting an object will not alter its position). In cognitive psychology and cognitive science, the term has been extended to the difficulty of modeling the human ability to quickly generate reasonable hypotheses that make sense of events in the environment and to respond sensibly to incoming information, using relevant knowledge to guide the formation of new beliefs. [described by U.S. philosopher and psychologist Jerry Alan Fodor (1935– )]