A cognitive framework for explaining serial processing and sequence execution strategies

Psychon Bull Rev (2015) 22:54–77 DOI 10.3758/s13423-014-0773-4 THEORETICAL REVIEW A cognitive framework for explaining serial processing and sequence execution strategies Willem B. Verwey & Charles H. Shea & David L. Wright Published online: 25 November 2014 # Psychonomic Society, Inc. 2014 Abstract Behavioral research has produced many taskspecific cognitive models that do not say much about the underlying information-processing architecture. Such an architecture is badly needed to better understand how cognitive neuroscience can benefit from existing cognitive models. This problem is especially pertinent in the domain of sequential behavior where behavioral research suggests a diversity of cognitive processes, processing modes and representations. Inspired by decades of reaction time (RT) research with the Additive Factors Method, the Psychological Refractory Period paradigm, and the Discrete Sequence Production task, we propose the Cognitive framework for Sequential Motor Behavior (C-SMB). We argue that C-SMB accounts for cognitive models developed for a range of sequential motor tasks (like those proposed by Keele et al., Psychological Review, 110(2), 316–339, 2003; Rosenbaum et al., Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance, 9(1), 86–102, 1983, Journal of Memory and Language, 25, 710-725, 1986, Psychological Review, 102, 28–67, 1995; Schmidt, Psychological Review, 82(4), 225– W. B. Verwey Department of Cognitive Psychology and Ergonomics, Faculty of Behavioural, Management, and Social Sciences, Universiteit Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands W. B. Verwey (*) MIRA Research Institute, Universiteit Twente, PO Box 217, 7500 AE Enschede, The Netherlands e-mail: W. B. Verwey : C. H. Shea : D. L. Wright Human Performance Laboratories, Department of Health and Kinesiology, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, USA C. H. Shea e-mail: D. L. Wright e-mail: 260, 1975; Sternberg et al., 1978, Phonetica, 45, 177–197, 1988). C-SMB postulates that sequence execution can be controlled by a central processor using central-symbolic representations, and also by a motor processor using sequencespecific motor representations. On the basis of this framework, we present a classification of the sequence execution strategies that helps researchers to better understand the cognitive and neural underpinnings of serial movement behavior. Keywords Motor skill . Information processing architecture . Movement sequences Introduction Cognitive psychological research is said to have started in the 1950s (Miller, 2003; Sanders, 1998). Its aim is to understand how the brain processes information, that is, how it transforms, reduces, elaborates, stores, recovers, and uses information provided by the senses and how it controls speech and movement (Neisser, 1967). This information-processing approach is based on the careful scrutiny of behavioral measures like reaction time (RT), movement time, and accuracy in order to reverse-engineer the underlying processing system. It has roots in applied research in the 1940s, but has turned into a functional analysis of human information processing in its own right (Meyer, Osman, Irwin, & Yantis, 1988; Sanders, 1998). The information-processing approach addresses Marr’s (1982) well-known algorithmic/representational level. This level of analysis provides a link between Marr’s computational level (asking what problems the system solves and why it does that), and his implementation level (asking how the system is physically and neurally realized). The informationprocessing approach can be regarded the successor of behaviorism. This approach to psychology has claimed that it is not possible to study mental processes, and that behavioral Psychon Bull Rev (2015) 22:54–77 research should concern itself with the relationship between environment and observable behavior of people and animals (e.g., Bargh & Ferguson, 2000; Skinner, 1945). Since the 1970s, technological advances have enabled researchers to assess in increasing detail the regional activity in the brain that is associated with information processing using techniques like EEG, PET and fMRI (Gazzaniga, Ivry, & Mangun, 2013). Simultaneously, the availability of increasingly powerful computers has enabled computational modeling of both cognitive and neural processes (Anderson, 1983; Anderson, Bothell, Byrne, Douglass, Lebiere, & Qin, 2004; De Garis, Shuo, Goertzel, & Ruiting, 2010; Goertzel, Lian, Arel, de Garis, & Chen, 2010; Kandel, Markram, Matthews, Yuste, & Koch, 2013; J. E. Laird, 2012). In recent years, research using behavioral, neural, and computational indices of behavior is gradually merging into what has been termed cognitive neuroscience (e.g., Gazzaniga et al., 2013). A problem we address in the present paper is that cognitive neuroscience research does not benefit as much from cognitive psychological theorizing as it could in that theorizing in these domains is still quite distinct (Forstmann, Wagenmakers, Eichele, Brown, & Serences, 2011; for interesting exceptions, see e.g. Anderson et al., 2004; Zylberberg, Dehaene, Roelfsema, & Sigman, 2011). One reason is that cognitive psychological research has not yet provided clear theoretical perspectives on the underlying cognitive processing architecture. Instead, most cognitive models are developed for a particular experimental paradigm without making clear how the proposed cognitive processes relate to those proposed by other cognitive models (for a classic and still valid critique; see Newell, 1973). As a consequence, the number of models accounting for human behavior continues to proliferate to the point that some models are simply forgotten over time (see, e.g., Abernethy & Sparrow, 1992). In the present article, we deal with this problem by addressing communalities across three information processing models. Two of these models are based on classic research methods, the Additive Factors Method (Sanders, 1990, 1998) and the Psychological Refractory Period paradigm (Pashler, 1994). The third is a cognitive model of sequential motor behavior, the Dual Processor Model, that has been proposed by the first author of the present article (Verwey, 2001). On the basis of these models, we propose a framework called the Cognitive framework for Sequential Motor Behavior (C-SMB). This framework is argued to describe information processing in many tasks, including the execution of sequential movements. We then use our framework to focus on the problem in motor behavior research that researchers sometimes do not seem to realize that the same movement sequences can be executed with different processing strategies. This relates to the idea that, while not always acknowledged in the cognitive and movement science research communities, producing movement sequences is a cognitive task that also relies on 55 central and perceptual processes (Rosenbaum, 2005; Rosenbaum, Chapman, Coelho, Gong, & Studenka, 2 (...truncated)