An Overview of the EPIC Architecture for Cognition and Performance With Application to Human-Computer Interaction

Abstract

EPIC (Executive Process-Interactive Control) is a cognitive architecture especially suited for modeling human multimodal and multiple-task performance. The EPIC architecture includes peripheral sensory-motor processors surrounding a production-rule cognitive processor and is being used to construct precise computational models for a variety of human-computer interaction situations. We briefly describe some of these models to demonstrate how EPIC clarifies basic properties of human performance and provides usefully precise accounts of performance speed.