Publications

Modeling an unstructured driving domain: A comparison of two cognitive frameworks

Best, Bradley J.; Dixon, Kevin R.; Speed, Ann; Fleetwood, Michael D.

This paper outlines a comparison between two cognitive modeling frameworks: Atomic Components of Thought - Rational (ACT-R; Anderson & Lebiere, 1998) and a framework under development at Sandia National Laboratories. Both frameworks are based on the cognitive psychological literature, although they represent different theoretical perspectives on cognition, with ACT-R being a production-rule-based system and the Sandia framework being a dynamical-systems or connectionist-type approach. This comparison involved a complex driving domain in which both the car being driven and the driver were equipped with sensors that provided information to each framework. The output of each framework was a classification of the real-world situation that the driver was in, e.g., being overtaken on the autobahn. Comparisons between the two frameworks included validation against human ratings of the driving situations via videotapes of driving sessions, along with twelve creation and performance metrics regarding the method and ease of framework population, processor requirements, and maximum real-time data sampling rate.