Efficient message computation in Sigma's graphical architecture

Human cognition runs at ∼50 ms per cognitive cycle, implying that any biologically inspired cognitive architecture that strives for real-time performance needs to be able to run at this speed. Sigma is a cognitive architecture built upon graphical models - a broadly applicable state-of-the-art formalism for implementing cognitive capabilities - that are solved via message passing (with complex messages based on n-dimensional piecewise-linear functions). Earlier work explored optimizations to Sigma that reduced by an order of magnitude the number of messages sent per cycle. Here, optimizations are introduced that reduce by an order of magnitude the average time required per message sent.