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Tutorials

The tutorials on this page describe the previous version of ACT-R, 5.0. The tutorials for the current version, 6.0, are included with the source code which you can get from the ACT-R 6 page.

ACT-R 5.0 Introductory Tutorial

The following PowerPoint presentation provides a solid introduction to ACT-R 5.0 in a single resource:

  • Introduction to ACT-R 5.0 [ppt]

ACT-R 5.0 Theory and Reference

Because ACT-R 5.0 differs quite a bit from ACT-R 4.0, "The Atomic Components of Thought" is not really an adequate reference text. This paper is intended to serve as a replacement (it is roughly equivalent to the first few chapters of the book): Integrated Theory of the Mind.

ACT-R 5.0 Tutorial Units

Tutorial updated June , 2004

Below are the links to the tutorial units. There is an additional text for each of the units 2-8 that describes in detail the Lisp code that implements the experiments for the models.

You can also get all of the unit text files in a single zip archive.

Here are some notes about the current tutorial materials.

  • The html formatted versions don't always look right so the Word documents or pdfs are a better option if you can read them.
  • They are written to be used with the ACT-R environment, so if you are not using the environment you will not have access to the dialogs that it describes. Most of the dialogs' data can be displayed with command line function calls, but there isn't an ACT-R 5 manual. So, if you have questions you should contact me (email address above) for details (probably the most important new command is buffers, which displays some of the buffers' contents).
  • As the tutorial models are written, the default setting for the experiment windows is to use real windows. However, that only works in MCL, ACL for Windows, or in the ACT-R Environment. If you are using any other system, then you need to make sure that you change the :visible parameter in the open-exp-window calls to nil so that it uses virtual windows. That should work on any of the tested systems, but you will not be able to run the experiments yourself, since you can't see the display.

Tutorial model files

The model files are available with any of the three line ending options Dos/Windows, Mac OS, or Linux/Unix, so get whichever version you need (note if you are using the Environment with Mac OSX you will need the Unix versions if you want to open them from the Environment).

All of the models for the tutorial are also available in one archive for Windows, Unix, or Macs.

Note: The solution models are no longer a part of the distributions because the materials are used for teaching a class. If you need the solutions, please contact db30@andrew.cmu.edu.

Additional Material

There is a manual available that describes the new toolkit for building experiments for ACT-R in Lisp (the AGI - ACT-R GUI interface). html doc pdf.

There is a parameter reference for the SGP command. html doc pdf.
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