Editing ACT-R (section)

===Brain Imaging and Modular Structure: 1998–2015===
After the release of ACT-R 4.0, [[John Robert Anderson (psychologist)|John Anderson]] became more and more interested in the underlying neural plausibility of his life-time theory, and began to use brain imaging techniques pursuing his own goal of understanding the computational underpinnings of the human mind.

The necessity of accounting for brain localization pushed for a major revision of the theory.  ACT-R 5.0 introduced the concept of modules, specialized sets of procedural and declarative representations that could be mapped to known brain systems.<ref>Anderson, J. R., et al. (2004) An integrated theory of the mind. ''Psychological Review'', ''111(4)''. 1036–1060</ref>  In addition, the interaction between procedural and declarative knowledge was mediated by newly introduced buffers, specialized structures for holding temporarily active information (see the section above).  Buffers were thought to reflect cortical activity, and a subsequent series of studies later confirmed that activations in cortical regions could be successfully related to computational operations over buffers.

A new version of the code, completely rewritten, was presented in 2005 as ACT-R 6.0. It also included significant improvements in the ACT-R coding language.  This included a new mechanism in ACT-R production specification called dynamic pattern matching.  Unlike previous versions which required the pattern matched by a production to include specific slots for the information in the buffers, dynamic pattern matching allows the slots to be matched to also be specified by the buffer contents.  A description and motivation for the ACT-R 6.0 is given in Anderson (2007).<ref>Anderson, J. R. (2007). ''How can the human mind occur in the physical universe?'' New York, NY: Oxford University Press. {{ISBN|0-19-532425-0}}.</ref>