P2.

59
Linking cognitive models and Event Related Potentials
H. Prins1, J. Wierda1, S. Martens2, N. Taatgen1, R.A.J. van Elburg1
1
Department of Artificial Intelligence, University of Groningen; 2Neuroimaging Center, University of Groningen

Abstract RESULTS
This pilot study explores the links between cognitive activity
modeled in ACT-R buffers and EEG activity decomposed in
independent components. ERP Results (non-blink trials) ICA Results (non-blink trials)
Recent efforts to predict fMRI activation using cognitive models
helped to spatially localize modeled brain functionality. EEG
excels in temporal resolution and may provide a more detailed
picture of cognitive activity at the millisecond scale.

Lag 3
ACT-R is an architecture for cognitive models that give a
temporally precise description of activity in buffers that have
previously been localized using fMRI.
For an attentional blink model, preliminary results support a
relation between imaginal buffer activity and the P300.

MODEL AND EXPERIMENT

Lag 8

The Attentional Blink Task

● Activity from an existing model (Taatgen, 2009) is compared
with EEG activity from an existing study (Martens, 2006).
● Model and participants performed the same Rapid Serial
Visual Presentation (RSPV) task testing the Attentional Blink
(AB) paradigm Human ERP measured at the Pz electrode (gray lines) and virtual ERP based on Contribution of selected components (shaded blue) to the overall ERP (dashed
imaginal buffer activity (red lines) for the blink (dashed) and non-blink (solid) gray) for one of the non-blinking participants. Contribution of the two components
● During an AB task one or two targets are presented with groups. compared to imaginal buffer activity are highlighted (red and blue).
varying inter-target delays (Lag). For small lags, blinking
participants (B) often miss the second one, causing a dip in
accuracy, while non-blinkers (NB) do not.
Comparison between components and virtual ERP
Blink Non-Blink Weights
Fit on Behavioral Data
Lag 3

IC 5 IC 14

IC 7 IC 1
● Modified model to fit the presentation rate and the other
experimental conditions (Wierda, 2010) in Martens (2006) Top Projection weights of the components to
accurately reproduces the blink effect for Lag 3 the scalp electrodes and approximate location
Lag 8

of the ACT-R buffers that are compared with the

components on the left ().

Left Average over all trials for the selected

components (gray lines) compared with their
METHODS best matching virtual ERP (red lines).

Virtual ERP's from a procedural model

DISCUSSION

Imaginal buffer and the P300 Future work

● Buffer use in ACT-R takes a predefined amount of time.
Activity is defined 1 when active (between event on- and
offset) and 0 when not (left)
● Virtual ERP's are constructed by simply averaging activity in
buffers over model runs for a specific condition (right)
Independent Component Analysis (ICA)
● EEG (Martens, 2006) is decomposed in components using
ICA for one of the non-blinking (NB) participants
● Four of the components that contribute most to the ERP
under all four conditions (B, NB, Lag 3, Lag 8) were compared
with the constructed virtual ERP's
● P300 and imaginal buffer activity are both target related
● Activity in the imaginal buffer is therefore previously linked to
memory consolidation (Taatgen, 2009), as is the P300
(Martens, 2006)
● ERP results support a link between imaginal buffer activation
and the P300
● ICA results indicate decomposition of the P300 into an early
and a late component
● Latency of peaks in these components corresponds better
with modeled activity then P300 deflections in ERP do
Cognitive Models and ERP
● Results indicate that ICA can narrow the gap between model
predictions and ERP
● Construction of virtual ERP's from ACT-R buffer activations
seems to be a promising tool for model evaluation
● Clustering of independent components (IC) is required for
direct comparison of modeled groups of participants
● Increasing accuracy of virtual ERP's by transforming
activation on- and offsets rather then directly comparing
them
● Better informed match between ERP components and virtual
ERP's by guiding search, clustering or ICA, using features of
modeled virtual ERP's
References
Martens, S., Munneke, J., Smid, H. & Johnson, A. Quick Minds Don't Blink: Electrophysiological
Correlates of Individual Differences in Attentional Selection. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 18,
1423-1438 (2006).
Taatgen, N.A., Juvina, I., Schipper, M., Borst, J.P. & Martens, S. Too much control can hurt: A threaded
cognition model of the attentional blink. Cognitive Psychology 59, 1-29 (2009)
CONTACT hielke.prins@student.uva.nl