Serial Modules in Parallel: The Psychological Refractory Period and Perfect Time-Sharing

The authors describe ACT-R/perceptual-motor (ACT-R/PM), an integrated theory of cognition, perception, and action that consists of the ACT-R production system and a set of perceptual-motor modules. Each module (including cognition) is essentially serial, but modules run in parallel with one another....

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological review 2001-10, Vol.108 (4), p.847-869
Main Authors: Byrne, Michael D, Anderson, John R
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Activity levels. Psychomotricity
Attention
Biological and medical sciences
Cognition
Cognition & reasoning
Cognitive Processes
Experiments
Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology
Human
Humans
Information processing
Mental stress
Models, Psychological
Perception
Perceptual Motor Processes
Psychology
Psychology. Psychoanalysis. Psychiatry
Psychology. Psychophysiology
Psychomotor activities
Psychomotor Performance
Psychophysics
Reaction Time
Refractory Period, Psychological
Time
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Summary:The authors describe ACT-R/perceptual-motor (ACT-R/PM), an integrated theory of cognition, perception, and action that consists of the ACT-R production system and a set of perceptual-motor modules. Each module (including cognition) is essentially serial, but modules run in parallel with one another. ACT-R/PM can model simple dual tasks such as the psychological refractory period (PRP), including subtle results previously explained with executive process interactive control (EPIC, D. E. Meyer & D. E. Kieras, 1997a ). The central difference between the theories is that EPIC's productions can fire in parallel, whereas in ACT-R/PM, they are serial. Results from three PRP-like experiments with more demanding cognitive requirements indicate that cognitive processing for the 2 tasks need not overlap. ACT-R's activation-based retrieval processes are critical in accounting for the timing of these tasks and for explaining the dual-task performance decrement.
ISSN:0033-295X
1939-1471
DOI:10.1037/0033-295X.108.4.847