[ACT-R-users] Trying again...Production Selection

[Dan Bothell]

--On Wednesday, March 03, 2004 1:25 PM -0500 Andrea Macklem 
<macklem at oakland.edu> wrote:

> Hello everyone,
>
> I am new to this mailing list and to working with ACT-R
> models.  I am a master?s student doing my research in
> validation and verification techniques for cognitive models.
> I have decided to write my own model to reference in my paper
> for illustration of my V&V methods.   This is where my
> question comes in.
>
> I have a question regarding a model I am creating to solve
> the Tower of Hanoi problem.  At one point I have three
> productions (with the same utility) that can be fired.  I
> would like the selection of the production to be random
> (since all three have equal utilities at this point).
> However, when I step through my model it always selects the
> first production to fire each time.  How can I make the
> selection between the three completely random?
>
> Any pointers to help achieve this randomness would be greatly
> appreciated!
>

The quick and dirty answer is that you need to turn on the
enable randomness flag, the :er parameter.  The details of
all the global parameters can be found in the parameter
reference guide on the tutorials page of the ACT-R website:
http://act-r.psy.cmu.edu/tutorials.


Dan