A cognitive model of human thinking

This paper, based on findings in brain organization and cognitive neuroscience, proposed a more low-level and plausible architecture of human cognition, called CAUT, which can demonstrate the diagram and mechanism of human thinking. Comparing with existing models, three changes are made: (1) a pathway called inner loop is added from motor controller to thalamus; (2) a memory controller is added in front of long-term declarative memory, which can judge whether the memory operation is retrieval or not; (3) two new modules, Active Object buffer (AO) and Active Action buffer, are separated out of the general working memory model. With CAUT architecture, a dynamic cognitive model is put out with which typical thinking processes can be interpreted and described more precisely. Problem solving are demonstrated with this model, and two typical problems, decision problem and search problem, are interpreted. Experiments with ACT-R indicate that CAUT is consistent with ACT-R in functional level, and the description can be easily transformed into ACT-R model, and CAUT architecture can be taken as a meta-description and design tool to construct cognitive model. Experiments with ACT-R also indicate the effectiveness of CAUT architecture.