Welcome! My name is Jelmer Borst, and I am currently working as a Ph.D. student at the Department of Artificial Intelligence of the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
In my project I am trying to unravel the mysteries of human multitasking: why can some tasks be carried out concurrently without presenting any problems (walking & talking), other tasks with some difficulty (driving and calling), while again other tasks are virtually impossible to perform at the same time (talking to someone and reading a paper)? Answering this question requires a theory of human cognition: what are the cognitive limitations of humans, and under what conditions will tasks therefore interfere when carried out together? Using cognitive modeling, in particular the cognitive architecture ACT-R, we are working on such a theory of human multitasking, called 'Threaded Cognition'.
My advisors during this project are Niels Taatgen and Hedderik van Rijn; together with Fokie Cnossen, Leendert van Maanen, Jacolien van Rij, Katja Mehlhorn, and Ben Meijering we form the Cognitive Modeling group. In 2010, we will organize the first European ACT-R Spring School.