PRP

From MindModelingWiki

[edit] Psychological Refractory Period - PRP

Understanding the details of the mechanisms involved in human cognitive processing is critical for accurately predicting human performance in naturalistic contexts. PRP stands for "Psychological Refractory Period," which refers to the interference caused by having to do two tasks at once. With this task, we are using computational cognitive modeling to evaluate alternative theories in the context of ongoing research on the impact of fatigue on cognition. Research on fatigue has exposed broad decrements in cognitive performance stemming from lack of adequate sleep. The consequences of these deficits in naturalistic settings can be substantial and, sometimes, tragic. However, there remain important theoretical questions regarding the mechanisms responsible for these effects, which limits our ability to accurately predict how fatigue will degrade performance. We are comparing the predictions of two existing theories in this area using a model developed by Byrne and Anderson (2001) within the Adaptive Control of Thought – Rational (ACT-R) cognitive architecture. We are validating the model’s performance using data from a study published by Bratzke, Rolke, Ulrich, and Peters (2007). Apart from providing data to evaluate competing theories, this research is helping to illustrate the utility of using computational modeling for making theoretical constraints explicit and for generating quantitative predictions about human performance.