Patton, E. W., & Gray, W. D. (2010). SANLab-CM: A tool for incorporating stochastic operations into activity network modeling. Behavior Research Methods, 42(3), 877-883.
SANLab-CM: A tool for incorporating stochastic operations into activity network modeling
The Stochastic Activity Network Laboratory for Cognitive Modeling (SANLab-CM)
is a new tool that incorporates stochastic operations into activity network
modeling (Schweickert, Fisher, & Proctor, 2003). In this article, we discuss the core functionality of SANLab-CM and walk through a case study that expands a previously published single, static path model of telephone operators interacting with customers via a workstation (from Gray, John, & Atwood,
1993) into a stochastic model that generates 55 unique paths with different
frequencies and a variety of qualitative properties. Without SANLab-CM,
it would have been easy to mistake some of the more frequent critical paths
as evidence for alternative strategies for task completion. With SANLab-CM,
these critical paths can be shown to be simple emergent properties of variability
in elementary cognitive, perceptual, and motor processes.