|Abstract||Answer Set Programming is a new paradigm based on
logic programming. The main component of answer set programming
is a system that ﬁnds the answer sets of logic programs. During
the computation of an answer set, systems are faced with choice
points where they have to select a literal and assign it a truth
value. Generally, systems utilize some heuristics to choose new
literals at the choice points. The heuristic used is one of the
key factors for the performance of the system. A new heuristic
for answer set programming has been developed. This heuristic is
inspired by hierarchical planning. The notion of criticality,
which was introduced for generating abstraction hierarchies in
hierarchical planning, is used in this heuristic. The resulting
system (CSMOD- ELS) uses this new heuristic in a static way.
CSMODELS is based on the system SMODELS. The experimental
results show that this new heuristic is promising for answer set
programming. A comparison of search times with SMODELS
demonstrate CSMODELS’