An information-processing model of the BOLD response in symbol manipulation tasks (2002)

John R. Anderson, Yulin Qin, Myeong-Ho Sohn, V. Andrew Stenger, Cameron S. Carter

Bibliographic Entry

Anderson, J. R., Qin, Y., Sohn, M-H., Stenger, V. A. & Carter, C. S. (2003) An information-processing model of the BOLD response in symbol manipulation tasks. Psychonomic Bulletin & Review. 10, 241-261.

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.

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Supplemental Files

• ACT-R 5.0 web-based simulations and model source code

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