Year: 2014
Type: article
Abstract: In this paper, we describe an extension of the theory of shortterm memory decay for the ACT-R cognitive architecture.By including a short-term decay for elements recently cleared from active memory, we have extended the functionality of spreading activation as a source of implicit contextual information for the model.In ACT-R models of serial memory and decision-making, contextual information has generally been modeled using either explicit markers (e.g., positional indices) or fixed-length windows of prior elements (e.g., a lag-based representation).While markers and fixedlength windows do capture some patterns of human errors, they are inflexible, are set by the modeler and not the model, and are not psychologically-plausible representations of contextual information.In conjunction with our associative learning mechanism (Thomson & Lebiere, 2013), we show how buffer decay can provide more flexible and implicit contextual information which explains refraction, positional confusion errors, and repetition facilitation and inhibition.
Institution: Carnegie Mellon University
Language: English
Subfield: Cognitive Neuroscience
Field: Neuroscience
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
Awards: G4928057434, G5259331294, G8330157387
OpenAlex ID: W2406594823