practice ther wa n effec o shap name o colo naming
Processin withi th PD
Page: 4 of 30 however shape produce som inter 170%
Afte 5 day o training
ference, and after 20 days, ther e was a large effect. That is, pre-
senting a shape with a name that conflicted with its ink color
produced strong interference with the color-naming response.
The reverse pattern of results occurred for the shape-naming
task. After 1sessio n of practice, conflicting ink color interfere d
CONTROL OF AUTOMATIC PROCESSES
a pattern of activation over the units i n a module. Th e activation
of each unit is a real valued number varying betwee n a maxi-
mum and minimum value. Thus , information i s represented in
a graded fashion and can accumulate and dissipate with time.
Processing. Processing occurs by the propagation of signals
(spread of activation) from one module to another. This occurs
via the connections that exist between the units in different
modules. In general, there may be connections within as well as
between modules, and connections may be bidirectional. How -
ever, for present purposes, we adop t the simplification tha t there
is a unidirectional flow of processing, starting at modules used
to represent sensory input and proceeding forward or from the
bottom up t o modules from which output governs the executio n
Architectural characteristics.
framewor i assume t tak plac i a syste o connecte
modules. Each module consists of an ensemble of elementary
processing units. Each unit is a simple information-processing
device that accumulates inputs from other units and adjusts its
output continuously in response to these inputs.
Representation of information. Information is represented as
335
Attentional control. One way t o avoid the interactions that
occur at the intersection between two pathways i s to modulate
the information arriving along one of them. This is one of the
primary functions of attention within this framework and is
consistent with the views on attention expressed by several
other authors (Kahneman & Treisman, 1984; Logan, 1980;
Treisman, 1960). In our system, modulation occurs by altering
the responsiveness of the processing units in a pathway. In this
way, attention can be used to control individual processes. How -
ever, this does not necessarily imply that attention requires a
unique or even distinct component of processing. Attention can
be though t of a s a n additional source of inpu t tha t provides con -
textual support for the processing of signals within a selected