Abstract:
Human reactions appear to be controlled by two separate types of mental processes: one fast, automatic, and unconscious and the other slow, deliberate, and conscious. With the attention in the literature focused on the taxonomy of the two processes, there is little discussion of how they interact. In this paper, we focus on modeling the slower
process’s ability to inhibit the fast process. We present computational cognitive models in which different strategies allow a human to consciously inhibit an undesirable fast response. These general strategies include (a) blocking sensory input, (b), blocking or interrupting the fast process’s
response, and (c) slowing down or delaying processing by introducing additional task. Furthermore, we discuss an approach to learning such strategies based on the inference of the causes and effects of the fast process.
