Simulating human periodic tapping and implications for cognitive models

This project’s purpose was to simulate human periodic motor behavior in a simple self-paced tapping task that involved period error correction and feedback processing. When humans try to tap at a certain period, their inter-tap times are normally distributed with a standard deviation that is proportional to the period. When they try to change the period of their tapping, they do so in a single tap instead of a progressive correction taking place over multiple taps. We calibrated ACT-R’s new periodic tapping motor extension based on human experimental results and showed that ACT-R can simulate human motor behavior. Future research can leverage these findings and ACT-R’s periodic tapping motor extension to simulate fast-paced skilled motor behavior in complex perceptual-motor environments.