A Connectionist Implementation of the ACT-R Production System

Christian Lebière
and
John R. Anderson

Christian Lebière
Department of Psychology
Carnegie Mellon University
Pittsburgh, Pa 15213
EMAIL:cl+@cmu.edu

Abstract

This paper describes a connectionist implementation of the ACT-R production system. Declarative knowledge is stored as chunks in separate associative memories for each type. Procedural knowledge consists of the pattern of connections between the type memories and a central memory holding the current goal. While ACT-R concepts such as adaptive learning and activation-based retrieval and matching naturally map into connectionist concepts, the implementation in turn provides interpretations for arising behavior characteristics such as time of memory retrieval and production firing, retrieval errors, partial matching, and limits on production generality.


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