<HTML><BODY style="word-wrap: break-word; -khtml-nbsp-mode: space; -khtml-line-break: after-white-space; "><DIV>ACT-R Folks:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>My co-authors and I are pleased to announce the publication of:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Gray, W. D., Sims, C. R., Fu, W.-T., & Schoelles, M. J. (2006). The soft constraints hypothesis: A rational analysis approach to resource allocation for interactive behavior. Psychological Review, 113(3), 461-482.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>(abstract follows below)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Our concern for resource allocation is something that arose in the context of trying to determine the right set of tradeoffs between acquiring knowledge in-the-world versus retrieving knowledge from in-the-head in the context of our work in building ACT-R models of the Argus Prime task. (Note that this is not an ACTR or an Argus Prime paper. No ACTR or Argus Prime models are discussed or included in the current publication.)</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Although the current paper does not include an ACTR model, ACTR modelers might find our Ideal Performer Model interesting for some of the following reasons (in addition to the reasons that non-ACTR modelers might find the work interesting):</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>We use a type of reinforcement learning, Q-learning, that (in our use of this technique) is formally guaranteed to optimize performance in terms of minimizing time.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>We pull out of ACTR several important components which we then embed in our Ideal Performer Model:</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>We use the Rational Activation Theory of memory that has been the default memory for all ACTR models from 1.0 thru 6.0. We use this to provide retrieval times as well as probabilities for successful retrieval.</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>From ACTR models of Blocks World (partially reported in <FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">Gray, W. D., Schoelles, M. J., & Sims, C. R. (2005). Adapting to the task environment: Explorations in expected value. </SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;"><I>Cognitive Systems Research, 6</I></SPAN></FONT><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="3"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px;">(1), 27-40<FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 16px;">) we pull out time estimates for perceptual-motor activity.</SPAN></FONT></SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>Wayne</DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><DIV>ABSTRACT</DIV><DIV><FONT class="Apple-style-span" size="4"><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 14px;">Soft constraints hypothesis (SCH) is a rational analysis approach that holds that the mixture of perceptual-motor and cognitive resources allocated for interactive behavior is adjusted based on temporal cost-benefit tradeoffs. Alternative approaches maintain that cognitive resources are in some sense protected or conserved in that greater amounts of perceptual-motor effort will be expended to conserve lesser amounts of cognitive effort. One alternative, the minimum memory hypothesis (MMH), holds that people favor strategies that minimize the use of memory. SCH is compared with MMH across 3 experiments and with predictions of an Ideal Performer Model that uses ACT-R’s memory system in a reinforcement learning approach that maximizes expected utility by minimizing time. Model and data support the SCH view of resource allocation; at the under 1000-millisecond level of analysis, mixtures of cognitive and perceptual-motor resources are adjusted based on their cost-benefit tradeoffs for interactive behavior.</SPAN></FONT></DIV><DIV><BR class="khtml-block-placeholder"></DIV><BR><DIV> <SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; border-spacing: 0px 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; text-align: auto; -khtml-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -apple-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**</SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Wayne D. Gray; Professor of Cognitive Science</SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute</SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">Carnegie Building (rm 108) ;;for all surface mail & deliveries</SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">110 8th St.; Troy, NY 12180</SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><BR style="font-family: Monaco; font-size: 9px; "></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">EMAIL: <A href="mailto:grayw@rpi.edu">grayw@rpi.edu</A>, Office: 518-276-3315, Fax: 518-276-3017</SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><BR style="font-family: Monaco; font-size: 9px; "></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">for general information see: <A href="http://www.rpi.edu/~grayw/">http://www.rpi.edu/~grayw/</A> </SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><BR style="font-family: Monaco; font-size: 9px; "></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">for On-Line publications see: <A href="http://www.rpi.edu/~grayw/pubs/downloadable_pubs.htm">http://www.rpi.edu/~grayw/pubs/downloadable_pubs.htm</A></SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><BR style="font-family: Monaco; font-size: 9px; "></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">for the CogWorks Lab see: <A href="http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/cogworks/">http://www.cogsci.rpi.edu/cogworks/</A></SPAN></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><BR style="font-family: Monaco; font-size: 9px; "></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><FONT class="Apple-style-span" color="#800000"><I style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0); font-style: italic; ; font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0); font-style: italic; ; font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="color: rgb(128, 0, 0); font-size: 12px; font-style: italic; ">If you just have formalisms or a model you are doing "operations research" or" AI", if you just have data and a good study you are doing "experimental psychology", and if you just have ideas you are doing "philosophy" -- it takes all three to do cognitive science.</SPAN></SPAN></I></FONT></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><BR style="font-family: Verdana; ; font-size: 12px; "></DIV><DIV style="font-size: 12px; "><SPAN class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 12px; ">**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**Rensselaer**</SPAN></DIV><BR class="Apple-interchange-newline"></SPAN></SPAN></SPAN> </DIV><BR></BODY></HTML>