Tuesday March 17, 13:30-14:30

The Role of Cognitive Control: Early Selection vs Late Correction

Larry L. Jacoby

(Department of Psychology, New York University, United States)

Consciousness is typically described as serving the role of an editor whose job is to prevent undesirable thoughts from being expressed as verbal responses or acts. Such "late correction" is one form of cognitive control. However, cognitive control can also be accomplished in an "early selection" manner by using constraints to restrict what comes to mind. Reliance on an early-selection mode of cognitive control results in independence of consciously-controlled and automatic processes. Recent experiments show that an early-selection model sometimes holds, and can provide a means of dissociating consciously-controlled and automatic processes. Doing so is important to understand retroactive and proactive effects (e.g., proactive interference) as well as age-related differences in memory.