Testing the Attention Capacities of a Complex Auto-Adaptive System: A Stroop Task Simulation

The Stroop task is a commonly used psychological test to study interferences that occur in cognitive control when two processes are in competition, and where a non habitual response needed to reach a defined goal competes with the habitual response. Many computer simulations already exist for this task, in neural networks and production systems. This paper presents a new simulation approach. It presents the first attempt to simulate the Stroop task using the properties of complexity and auto adaptivity of a massive multi agent system. Our approach allows us to simulate the time effects of cognitive impairment on the task. Results of the simulation are compared to an existing study on effects of fatigue on cognitive control impairment.