An Information-Processing Model of the BOLD Response in Symbol Manipulation Tasks

John R. Anderson
Yulin Qin
Myeong-ho Sohn
Cameron Carter

Abstract

Two imaging studies were performed - one of an algebraic transformation task studied by Anderson, Reder, and Lebiere (1996) and the other of an abstraction symbol manipulation task studied by Blessing and Anderson (1996). ACT-R models exist that carefully model the latency patterns in these tasks. These models require activity of an imaginal buffer to represent changes in the problem representation, in a retrieval buffer to hold information from declarative memory, and in a manual buffer to hold information about motor behavior. A general theory is described about how to map activity in these buffers onto the fMRI bold response. This theory claims that the BOLD response is integrated over the duration a buffer is active and can be used to predict the observed BOLD function. Activity in the imaginal buffer is shown to predict the BOLD response in a left, posterior parietal region; activity in the retrieval buffer is shown to predict the BOLD response in a left DLPFC region; and activity in the manual buffer is shown to predict activity in a motor region.

Models