| Description |
To investigate controlled processes, cognitive psychologists often rely on oppositional logic, pitting automatic and controlled processes against one another, measuring speed and accuracy of responding to incongruent stimuli (e.g., RED printed in green ink). These investigations have been critical to understanding cognitive control, but present a limited and mostly pejorative view of automatic processes. Through the studies in this dissertation, we explored a larger and more beneficial role for automatic processes. In the two preliminary experiments, we administered a high-congruency Simon task, with either a warning to encourage control or no warning where automatic and controlled processing were emphasized equally. The results suggested that high spans can exert or withhold control to a greater degree than low spans, based on simple changes to task instructions. The dissertation experiments replicated and extended these findings. The first two experiments were a speed-blocked variation of the Simon task, again with warning or no warning instructions as the only difference between experiments. Next, to see if these Simon task findings generalized, we administered the stop-signal paradigm as a multitasking extension of oppositional logic tasks and again found evidence of those higher in cognitive control having greater flexibility between automatic and controlled aspects of the task. Combined, the experiments suggest those with high levels of control are more flexible in their allocation of cognitive control and automaticity than low spans who rigidly apply both types of processing. High spans' flexibility is discussed as greater tolerance of automatic processing brought about by stronger inhibitory control. |
