The Building-Block Hypothesis appeals to the notion of problem decomposition and the assembly of solutions from sub-solutions.
Accordingly, there have been many varieties of GA lest problems with a structure based on building-blocks. Many of these problems
use deceptive fitness functions to model interdependency between the bits within a block. However, very few have any model
of interdependency between building-blocks; those that do are not consistent in the type of interaction used intra-block and
inter-block. This paper discusses the inadequacies of the various lest problems in the literature and clarifies the concept
of building-block interdependency. We formulate a principled model of hierarchical interdependency that can be applied through
many levels in a consistent manner and introduce Hierarchical If-and-only-if (H-1FF) as a canonical example. We present some empirical results of GAs on H-1FF showing that if population diversity is
maintained and linkage is tight then the GA is able to identify and manipulate building-blocks over many levels of assembly, as the Building-Block
Hypothesis suggests.