Tested the 2-process theory of detection, search, and attention presented by the current authors in a series of experiments. The studies demonstrate the qualitative difference between 2 modes of information processing: automatic detection and controlled search; trace the course of the learning of automatic detection, of categories, and of automatic-attention responses; and show the dependence of automatic detection on attending responses and demonstrate how such responses interrupt controlled processing and interfere with the focusing of attention. The learning of categories is (...) shown to improve controlled search performance. A general framework for human information processing is proposed. The framework emphasizes the roles of automatic and controlled processing. The theory is compared to and contrasted with extant models of search and attention. (shrink)

The analysis of pure word deafness (PWD) suggests that speech perception, construed as the integration of acoustic information to yield representations that enter into the linguistic computational system, (i) is separable in a modular sense from other aspects of auditory cognition and (ii) is mediated by the posterior superior temporal cortex in both hemispheres. PWD data are consistent with neuropsychological and neuroimaging evidence in a manner that suggests that the speech code is analyzed bilaterally. The typical lateralization associated with language (...) processing is a property of the computational system that acts beyond the analysis of the input signal. The hypothesis of the bilateral mediation of the speech code does not imply that both sides execute the same computation. It is proposed that the speech signal is asymmetrically analyzed in the time domain, with left‐hemisphere mechanisms preferentially extracting information over shorter (25–50 ms) temporal integration windows and right mechanisms over longer (150–250 ms) windows. (shrink)