A model of object location memory

We present a model of object location memory developed within the ACT-R cognitive architecture and compare the model's performance to that of human participants in a modified version of the toy test. The results of the experiment reveal that the accuracy of location recall is significantly affected by both the number of objects in the set and the order in which objects are selected for relocation. The model provides a close fit to the human data and is able to account for the combined effects of set size and selection order found in the experiment using ACT-R's declarative memory processes—in particular the similarity-based blending mechanism which combines the values of related memory elements to produced an aggregate response.