Stochastic Theory, Method and Experimental Design in the Identification of Mental Architecture

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This research will develop mathematical models of how people carry out simple mental tasks that involve more than one type of information presented simultaneously. Many theories and models in psychology that are able to make definite predictions for experiments are very specific and particularistic. In contract, this project will continue Townsend's development of general mathematical representations of important psychological issues. These general mathematical representations will then be used to construct decisive experimental tests of the critical questions posed by such issues. The generality of the approach implies that these experiments will support or falsify the broadest possible potential "laws" of behavior, rather than quite specific and rather limited aspects of such natural regularities. Rigorous mathematization of the principles and issues implies that the predictions follow rigorously from the assumptions embedded in the theory, and that the experimental tests really assess what is claimed to be assessed, which is not always true in verbally stated theories. This research will move beyond Townsend's recent mathematical theories, which are based on the assumption that each successive stage of the mental endeavor must be completed before the next begins. Although this assumption is very likely correct in a number of situations, such as in mental arithmetic, it is probably wrong in other tasks where the information may be free to flow continuously throughout the involved parts of the brain. For instance, in the recognition of a familiar face, it may well be that as sensory information comes in, it simultaneously flows to visual-long-term-memory centers, to emotional-memory areas, and even to areas causing early portions of an action. Thus, it may not be necessary to first receive and process the sensation, then pass on the completed sensory information to a recognition device, and so on, in discrete stages. This research will develop models that permit such continuous flow among the various important parts of the cognitive system. A second critical assumption has been an independence of the separate processing stages in cognition. Again, this may be reasonable in certain contexts but not in others. The research will begin to probe the question of what happens when this independence is given up and the different subprocesses can form serious interactions. The outcome of such research is vitally needed to construct more accurate and sophisticated theories of how people perceive and think. This information will be useful for understanding of normal mental functioning within the education process as well as for understanding mental functioning in cases of mental disabilitiy or disfunction.