We present a new modeling framework for recognition memory and repetition priming based on signal detection theory. We use this framework to specify and test the predictions of 4 models: (a) a single-system (SS) model, in which one continuous memory signal drives recognition and priming; (b) a multiple-systems-1 (MS1) model, in which completely…

The current authors reply to a response by Bowers on a comment by the current authors on the original article. A typical problem in any discussion about grandmother cells is that there is not a general consensus about what should be called as such. Here, we discuss possible interpretations in turn and contrast them with what we find in our own…

The author briefly responds to a number of terminological, theoretical, and empirical issues raised in some postscripts. The goal is not to respond to each outstanding point but rather to address some comments that in his view confuse rather than clarify matters. He responds to Plaut and McClelland and Quian Quiroga and Kreiman in turn.

Plaut and McClelland (2010) and Quian Quiroga and Kreiman both challenged my characterization of localist and distributed representations. They also challenged the biological plausibility of grandmother cells on conceptual and empirical grounds. This reply addresses these issues in turn. The premise of my argument is that grandmother cells in…

How does the brain carry out working memory storage, categorization, and voluntary performance of event sequences? The LIST PARSE neural model proposes an answer that unifies the explanation of cognitive, neurophysiological, and anatomical data. It quantitatively simulates human cognitive data about immediate serial recall and free recall, and…

Reply to comments on an article "Issues With the SIMPLE Model: Comment on Brown, Neath, and Chater" (2007) by Bennet Murdock on the current authors' original article "A temporal ratio model of memory" by Brown, Neath, and Chater. Does a single mechanism underpin serial and free recall? B. Murdock (2008) argued against the claim, embodied in the…

The conflict monitoring model of M. M. Botvinick, T. S. Braver, D. M. Barch, C. S. Carter, and J. D. Cohen (2001) triggered several research programs investigating various aspects of cognitive control. One problematic aspect of the Botvinick et al. model is that there is no clear account of how the cognitive system knows where to intervene when…

Describing the activities of the mind as interactions of different processing systems depends on the observation of functional dissociations between information processing tasks. Limitations of single and double dissociations are outlined, and a technique--reversed association--is suggested as a basis for inferring functionally independent…

Describes a neuropsychological theory of motor-skill learning that is based on the idea that learning grows directly out of motor-control processes. The theory accounts for patterns of impairment of motor-skill learning in patient populations and for learning-related changes in activity in functional imaging studies. (SLD)

The 1954 article by Eliot Stellar provided the theoretical focus for a great deal of research on the biological bases of human behavior. Future attention to the infrastructure of behaviors being studied, combined with reductionistic studies of neurons, will fulfill the potential contribution to behavioral neuroscience implicit in Stellar's…

The authors hypothesize that the symptoms of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), despite their apparent nonrationality, have what might be termed an epistemic origin-that is, they stem from an inability to generate the normal "feeling of knowing" that would otherwise signal task completion and terminate the expression of a security motivational…

The influence of behaviorism's methods and theories on theory and research in the neurosciences is examined, partly in light of John B. Watson's 1913 essay. An attempt is made to reconcile classical behaviorism and modern cognitive psychology and neuroscience. (SLD)

Neuropsychological findings relevant to the question of whether visual imagery is visual or perceptual are reviewed and compared to cognitive psychology theories. Imagery does not appear to represent information acquired through visual sensory channels; rather, it seems to use some of the same neural representational machinery as does vision. (SLD)

Current theories and research on distributed activation in sleep are reviewed, and a neurocognitive theory of sleep is presented that is based on distributed activation. Neural and cognitive relationships described by the theory are translated into connectionist models, and simulations are described. (SLD)

A neural theory of visual attention (NTVA) is presented. NTVA is a neural interpretation of C. Bundesen's (1990) theory of visual attention (TVA). In NTVA, visual processing capacity is distributed across stimuli by dynamic remapping of receptive fields of cortical cells such that more processing resources (cells) are devoted to behaviorally…