The first of three articles on the ways in which people formulate their observations, this paper considers the basic assumptions of both syntactic and paradigmatic models of cognition and their applications in natural (i.e., human) and artificial (i.e., computer) information processing. The analysis begins with background information on the nature of inventions and discoveries, the nature of perception, and modelling of the process of concept formulation. The differences between syntagmatic and paradigmatic processing models are then outlined, and the principles of operationalization, simulation, cross sectional analysis, and cross level analysis are examined as they are applied to models. The role of context in examination of languages is also discussed. A list of 38 references is appended. (MSE)