Procedural Control Versus Resources as Potential Origins of Human Hyper Selectivity

Abstract

In the current review, we argue that experimental results usually interpreted as evidence for cognitive resource limitations could also reflect functional necessities of human information processing. First, we point out that selective processing of only specific features, objects, or locations at each moment in time allows humans to monitor the success and failure of their own overt actions and covert cognitive procedures. We then proceed to show how certain instances of selectivity are at odds with commonly assumed resource limitations. Next, we discuss examples of seemingly automatic, resource-free processing that challenge the resource view but can be easily understood from the functional perspective of monitoring cognitive procedures. Finally, we suggest that neurophysiological data supporting resource limitations might actually reflect mechanisms of how procedural control is implemented in the brain.

Keywords: Simon effect; cueing; dual-process (dual-system) models; procedures; resources.

FIGURE 1

Procedural control in a closed-loop system works similarly to any feedback loop. The input (e.g., a text) would be checked for fitting content by the controller (i.e., a steering value determined by, e.g., an intention to search for errors in a list of references) to be processed (e.g., read and correct references) until a measuring element signals that the purpose is fulfilled (e.g., no further errors could be found in a list).

FIGURE 2

Examples of empirical results that challenge a rigid limited resources view. (A) Top-down biases on attention are strongest when single items are held in memory. Related to the results of Büsel et al. (2019) described in the main text, the results of Van Moorselaar et al. (2014) illustrate that attention is captured by distractors that match the working memory content only if a single color is kept in memory, but this capture effect already vanishes if two colors are kept in working memory, even though this should not exceed generally assumed capacity limits. (B) Ansorge and Wühr (2004) found out that Simon effects are restricted to response-discriminating stimulus variations. The key mapping, that is, whether the alternative response keys for red (R) or green (G) stimuli were arranged in a horizontal or a vertical configuration varied between participants and red and green target stimuli occurred either along the horizontal or vertical meridian. Crucially, spatial stimulus-response compatibility effects (Simon effects) – facilitation for responses that shared location codes with targets (e.g., right responses to right targets) relative to responses and targets of different locations (e.g., right responses to left targets) – occurred only in those conditions where the axis of stimulus variations corresponded with the spatial response axis. The same compatibility effects were missing with regards to the non-varying spatial response axis, suggesting that location selection reflected response monitoring rather than response execution. (C) Changing the response modality reverses seemingly automatic interference effects. Durgin (2000) reversed the Stroop effect simply by asking participants to click on color patches corresponding to the word meaning rather than utter the print color names. For further discussion see main text.

FIGURE 3

A schematic depiction of the two search conditions used in Büsel et al. (2019). In single color search blocks (A), participants were required to search for the same target feature throughout the whole block (here, for example, green). In dual color search blocks (B), participants searched for a target that could randomly either be red or green. Block order was balanced across participants. For the analysis presented in Box 2, we used data from participants in the A-B-A-B block order condition (framed gray).