Abstract

There has been a proliferation of proposed mental modules in an attempt to account for different cognitive functions but so far there has been no successful account of their integration. ACT-R (Anderson & Lebiere, 1998) has evolved into a theory that consists of multiple modules but also explains how they are integrated to produce coherent cognition. The perceptual-motor modules, the goal module, and the declarative memory module are presented as examples of specialized systems in ACT-R. These modules are associated with distinct cortical regions. These modules place chunks in buffers where they can be detected by a production system that responds to patterns of information in the buffers. At any point in time a single production rule is selected to respond to the current pattern. Subsymbolic processes serve to guide the selection of rules to fire as well as the internal operations of some modules. Much of learning involves tuning of these subsymbolic processes. Empirical examples are presented that illustrate the predictions of ACT-R’s modules. In addition, two models of complex tasks are described to illustrate how these modules result in strong predictions when they are brought together. One of these models is concerned with complex patterns of behavioral data in a dynamic task and the other is concerned with fMRI data obtained in a study of symbol manipulation.

Citations