Notes - Concurrency in Thought

Core research question: Concurrency in human task processing - how do we think/process concurrently? Limitations of concurrency in humans? Computational model?

Self notes:

Limits of multitasking depend on how many representationally-distinct pathways exist in the brain
Recommended Structure: (target 10 pages)
- Abstract: A short overview of your entire paper. (0.25 pages)
- Introduction: Why is this research question important? (0.75 pages)
- Experiment design: How did you examine the research question? Describe the process of conducting the literature review/experiment/models/tools. For the computational model/tool, you should also describe in detail about your model/tool and how you implemented them. (1 pages)
- Results: What did you find through your study? (4 pages)
- Discussion: What are the implications of your results? (2 pages)
- Conclusion: Overview of results and discussion. (1 page)
- Limitation: What is the limitation of your study? What could future study explore? (1 page)
My structure
- Introduction
- Design - historical, evolution, limits of concurrency, future (expansion)
  - How does human brain process concurrent tasks?
  - What is historical context of this topic?
  - What are the limits of concurrency in human brains?
- Results
  - History (1 page)
    - Single channel theory, biases, various models
    - Single processing unit
    - Shared-memory vs message-passing
  - Concurrency vs parallelism
  - Stroop test
  - Studies - list of studies done to find concurrency
  - Perception and action as two fundamental types of cognitive tasks
  - Cognitive function and motor function together, cognitive and cognitive together
  - Models - connectionist
    - Parallel information transmission
    - Working memory model vs connectionist
  - Differences from other mammals
  - Limits of concurrency
- Discussion
  - AGI

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01366/full

Researchers debate whether multitasking involves serial or parallel processing
Serial processing due to limited resources causes severe performance costs
Central cognitive processing in Task 2 can occur parallel to Task 1, challenging single-channel theories
Backward crosstalk logic and locus of slack logic are used to demonstrate parallel processing
Studies show evidence of central Task 2 processing during Task 1 bottleneck stage, supporting capacity sharing assumption
The concept of crosstalk challenges single-channel theories and highlights the interaction between central processes in multitasking.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4845905/
Multiplexing, or the use of the same representations for different purposes, can introduce cross-talk among processing pathways
The introduction of multiplexing decreases the number of tasks that can be executed at once
The problem of mutual interference, or cross-talk, arises due to the multiplexing of representations; that is, the use of the same representations for different purposes — for example, the use of phonological representations for both encoding auditorily presented words, and for reading words out loud
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epdf/10.1080/00335557243000102
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2925295/
Working memory is the small amount of information held in an easily retrievable state simultaneously
Various models of working memory

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0732118X21000222

research over the past 50 years has shown that serial-processing models are not an accurate account of human information processing
Concurrency vs parallelism
Shared-state model, message-passing
Elementary information processes. Serial computing encouraged serial thought processing model
We do have concurrency or parallelism otherwise motor functions would have interfered with higher-order cognition (thinking, decision making)
Behavioural experiments can distinguish serial and concurrent processes
Connectionist networks - parallel activation, parallel constraint satisfaction
Shared state vs message passing - more message passing recently
https://www.cs.utexas.edu/~dana/Salvucci-PR08.pdf
Concurrency as threaded cognition
Various combination of activities produce different results
The first implication of our theory of threaded cognition is that concurrent multitasking does not require supervisory or executive processes to manage and schedule multiple task processes.
Shared-resource model

Models of Central Capacity and Concurrency

Single Channel Theory - old theory that says humans can process tasks in serial. Derived from then computers which were serial.
Complex theories eveloped from von Neumann computer arch - several sensory inputs, one central processing operating one task at a time, outputs sent to peripherals, performed simultaneously.
Concurrency in central mechanism:
- Kahneman's theory - a limit on central capacity - various ways to assign this limit concurrently (total capacity increases as demand of concurrent processes increases.)
- McLeod - fixed capacity - assigned as per the difficulty of the task
- Multiprocessing vs timesharing:

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/epub/10.1111/j.1467-9280.1990.tb00067.x