Competing "retrieval" rule vs compiled "habit" rule?

[Brannon, Nathan G]

(G).

NGB



________________________________________
Nathan G. Brannon, Ph.D.
Senior Member Technical Staff
Sandia National Laboratories
P.O. Box 5800,  MS 0830
Albuquerque, NM  87185
(505) 845-7055


> ----------
> From: 	Richard M Young
> Sent: 	Wednesday, March 20, 2002 1:57 AM
> To: 	act-r-users at andrew.cmu.edu
> Subject: 	Competing "retrieval" rule vs compiled "habit" rule?
> 
> ACTers:
> 
> I have what I think is a technical "how to" query about ACT-R, although it
> sometimes turns out that what I think are "how to" issues are really deep
> architectural ones.
> 
> Because I'm a bit confused, the question will be a bit muddled, so I'd
> better explain the context.  I have been supervising a student project
> which is to re-implement the Byrne & Bovair 3CAPS model of
> "post-completion
> errors" (PCEs) in a way natural to ACT-R.  PCEs occur when the final step
> of some procedure is to be taken after its main goal has been achieved, in
> which case the final step has a tendency to be forgotten.  A classic
> example is making 2 photocopies of a document but leaving the original on
> the copier.  All great fun, but raising some issues that I'm finding
> tricky.
> 
> The particular aspect I'm finding difficult is capturing the effect of WM
> load.  The data on PCEs, although sparse, suggest that the error is more
> likely to occur under WM stress -- essentially you get distracted.  My
> problem is that if one models PCE as arising from production competition
> (with noise), then conflict resolution between productions is NOT
> sensitive
> to WM, i.e. to declarative item activation -- only to the E=PG-C on the
> competing rules.
> 
> (I had better say that my framework for thinking about this problem is
> ACT-R 4.0, not 5.0.  I have no objection to 5.0, but I teach 4.0 because
> it
> links with the 1998 textbook.)
> 
> Imagine this scenario, which is not a PCE but more like a prospective
> memory task, but I think will make the point.  Suppose you drive home on a
> regular route, so we assume (at least, I assume) that the decision-making
> productions for driving that route are all compiled into productions, i.e.
> "habit" productions.  (That would happen automatically in 5.0, yes?)
> Suppose on a particular day that you are meant to stop at the bread shop
> and buy some bread.  So (a) you say to yourself "Must stop at bread shop,
> must stop at bread shop, ..." and with any luck, when you see the shop you
> stop and buy some bread.  We might also believe (b) that if you were
> listening to the radio at that point and got interested in one of the news
> items, or if you were engaged in conversation with a passenger, or if some
> interesting outside event happened at that point on the drive, then the
> "must buy bread" would slip your mind (i.e. WM loss), and you are more
> likely to forget to stop and buy.
> 
> How does this map into ACT-R?  In scenario (a), we presumably have
> competition between, on the one hand, a compiled "habit" rule saying
> essentially "at this point, keep on driving", and on the other hand, an
> "interpretative" rule saying something like "if you have an intention in
> mind and the time is right, then do it".  Now, I'm already uncomfortable
> with the idea of competition between those two rules.  The
> *interpretative*
> rule is presumably a very general one, with a long history of being
> applied
> to totally different tasks in totally different circumstances, so I find
> it
> difficult to make sense of that rule competing with a very specific
> "habit"
> rule on the grounds of their respective statistical histories -- it seems
> like comparing chalk and cheese.
> 
> Worse, that rule conflict is not, according to ACT-R, in any way sensitive
> to the activation level of the declarative items that the interpretative
> rule must retrieve.  (True, if the activation is below threshold then the
> interpretative rule will fail, but that seems a very crude mechanism, and
> also *assumes* that the interpretative rule will necessarily win the
> conflict resolution.)  So the outcome is unaffected by whether you're
> firmly saying to yourself "stop and buy bread" or whether that has slipped
> your mind.  And that seems to contradict both data and also common sense.
> 
> Can anyone unmuddle me about this?
> 
> I'm also struck by the fact that there are no "retrieval" productions in
> 5.0, as I understand it.  Does this make a difference to the problem?
> 
> -- Richard
> 
> 
> 
>