So what does the typical symbolic AI program or cognitive model look like? Read the forward to [Computers and Thought 1989]. This short piece by Aaron Sloman has been around since at least 1983, as one of the HELP files in the Poplog programming system we use.
Inspired (or not) by the failure of robotics, researchers have started questioning such models. So please read the Preface and Chapter 1 of [Intelligence as adaptive behaviour].