Are there any cognitive scientists who build models out there? I'm starting a dissertation project which will attempt model associative learning of scientific misconceptions. Modeling is new territory for both my adviser and myself. Does anybody have advice/references? I am particularly curious about what environment I should use. It seems likely that R can handle a great deal of the initial development/testing of models, but should I plan on using lisp or some other high-level language for my final project?

Thank you in advance!