The key insight was the Turing machine-a simple theoretical construct that captured the essence of abstract symbol manipulation.

This directly relates to the argument within mathematics as to whether mathematics is based on ideas, or "merely" an exercise in formal symbol manipulation.

Many AI researchers have come to agree that human reasoning does not consist primarily of high-level symbol manipulation.

Searle emphasizes the fact that this kind of symbol manipulation is syntactic (borrowing a term from the study of grammar).

By the 1980s, many researchers began to doubt that high-level symbol manipulation alone could account for all intelligent behaviors.

Any symbol manipulation is in need of some way of deriving what those symbols mean.

In SIT's formal coding model, this encoding is modelled by way of symbol manipulation.

"A generalized technique for symbol manipulation and numerical calculation".

Traditional cognitive theory is based mainly around symbol manipulation, in which certain inputs are fed into a processing unit that produces an output.

This observation concludes then that depth can be perceived with no intermediate symbol manipulation necessary.