The Group
ECFI Group is an informal research group, located at Institute of Psychology, the Jagiellonian University, Krakow, Poland. Our main research goal is to understand and simulate the cognitive and brain mechanisms of human's ability to monitor and control its own cognitive processing (the ability called "executive" or "cognitive control"), as its effectiveness is probably the strongest predictor of intellectual and personal success in life and its decrease is the earliest symptom of mental deterioration. We are developing a computational architecture called DUCCA (DUal Cognitive Control Architecture), which is meant to represent main executive structures and processes in the human mind. DUCCA is able to simulate human behavior in most popular tasks tapping executive processes (like Stroop task). The four main features of DUCCA model are: implementation of both top-down and bottom-up control strategies with the same cognitive mechanism, reflection of temporal dynamics of executive control, ability to simulate individual differences in executive control, as observed among people, and explanation of their links to differences in intelligence and personality, as well as precise mapping of DUCCA elements onto brain structures. The model is tested with fine-grained experimental methods as well as with large-sample psychometric studies. Download a description of a preliminary version of DUCCA by clicking here.