A levels of processing interpretation of dual-system theories of judgment and decision making

Abstract

Recently there has been spirited disagreement about the merits of dual-system theories of higher cognition. I suggest that this dispute is very similar to the 1970s dispute between two-store theories of memory and levels of processing theory. The two-store or “box” theorists stipulated that short-term memory and long-term memory stores were quite dissimilar and therefore represented separate memory stores. Levels of processing theorists disputed the evidence for separate memory stores and asserted that memory was an epiphenomenon of the depth to which a stimulus was processed. I adopt the levels of processing approach to show how it can help clarify the phenomena previously described by dual-system theories. Furthermore, this proposed resolution to the controversy renders moot the serious disagreements about what features might characterize each of the two processes in dual-system theories.