DISCRETE VS CONTINOUS MODELS OF INFORMATION PROCESSING

两种非常不同类型的模型与大多数 认知心理学和人类信息领域的现有事实 正在处理。一种类型的模型将心理处理描述为一系列 具有离散输出的顺序操作，而另一个特征是 心理加工作为一系列连续的级联操作 产出。能够区分这两者是很重要的 模型的类型，因为它们对如何 研究人员应该设计实验来研究心理过程。目标是 这项研究的目的是开发区分这两者的方法 模型的类型。几种不同的实验范式将是 被认为是区分模型的可能手段，这些 范例将应用于广泛的刺激和任务。这个 这些实验解决的主要实证问题是 可用于一个心理过程的初步信息可由 在前一个心理过程结束之前完成的心理过程。为 例如，关于部分识别的刺激的信息是否可以用于 在认识到整个刺激之前就开始准备反应 完成了吗？连续模型预测的答案是肯定的，而 离散模型预测的答案是否定的。虽然答案不一定是 在所有任务中都是一样的，重要的是拥有能够 确定在心理学研究中使用的任何特定任务的答案 流程。

Two very different types of models are consistent with most of the available facts in the fields of cognitive psychology and human information processing. One type of model characterizes mental processing as a series of sequential operations with discrete outputs, and the other characterizes mental processing as a series of cascading operations with continuous outputs. It is important to be able to discriminate between these two types of models, because they have very different implications about how researchers should design experiments to study mental processes. The goal of this research is to develop methods for discriminating between the two types of models. Several different experimental paradigms will be considered as possible means for distinguishing the models, and these paradigms will be applied across a wide range of stimuli and tasks. The main empirical question addressed by these experiments is whether preliminary information available to one mental process can be used by a succeeding mental process before the earlier one has finished. For example, can information about a partially recognized stimulus be used to start preparing responses before recognition of the entire stimulus is complete? Continuous models predict an affirmative answer, whereas discrete models predict a negative answer. While the answer need not be the same in all tasks, it is important to have methods capable of determining the answer for any particular task used in studies of mental processes.