ABC applied situations

Application: driver can listen to a podcast on an empty highway but struggles in heavy traffic. Which theory?

Central capacity / controlled attention: as driving demand rises, total demand exceeds the limited pool (gas tank). Embedded-processes also fits (tasks compete for the focus of attention). Multiple resource would stress overlap, but here the tasks use different channels in light traffic.

Application: student forgets the beginning of a phone number while rehearsing the end.

Phonological loop capacity limit (~2-3 seconds) in the multiple-component model, or retroactive interference as new digits displace old ones.

Application: an experienced pianist plays while talking, but a novice cannot.

Practice reduces the attentional demand of a task (divided attention factor) and frees resources; fits central capacity/controlled attention (less attention needed). Multiple resource also fits (motor/auditory vs. verbal).

Application: participant remembers fewer words while repeating 'the, the, the…'

Articulatory suppression blocks the phonological loop (multiple-component model). Hardest for embedded-processes/controlled-attention to explain in terms of specific verbal subsystem interference.

Application: reading an article while monitoring tones (auditory) vs. a box on screen (visual). Predictions?

Central capacity: both secondary tasks cost about the same since total demand is the same. Multiple resources (Wickens): the VISUAL task interferes more with reading (same modality: visual); the AUDITORY task should interfere less. Threaded cognition: depends on urgency/which thread holds the resource.

Application: you can listen to a sports game on the radio while reading emails but not while reading another visual text.

Multiple resource theory (Wickens): different perceptual modalities (auditory vs. visual) use different pools; the same modality competes.

Application: you stop a task and brake when you see a red light while driving.

Threaded cognition: the most urgent thread gets resources; you put down one thread and pick up another. Also exogenous (bottom-up) attention capturing attention.

Application: a loud noise in class pulls your attention away from your goal.

Exogenous (bottom-up) attention via the ventral network; the TPJ and IPS act as a circuit breaker pausing the dorsal (top-down) network.

Application: you keep typing your old password after changing it.

Proactive interference (old information interferes with new).

Application: you learn your new phone number and forget your old one.

Retroactive interference (new information interferes with old).

Application: you crammed all night and forgot most of it by the exam.

Consolidation failure (memory not yet stabilized; steep early forgetting curve).

Application: you memorize your parking spot, never think of it again, and forget it.

Decay (loss due to passage of time).

Application: you forgot to tap the desk when you heard 'Elephant', but remembered once cued.

Event-based prospective memory; multi-process theory (spontaneous retrieval triggered by a cue) vs. PAM (monitoring requires attention).

Application: you forgot to raise your hand after 10 minutes.

Time-based prospective memory (self-initiated; requires monitoring and attention, PAM).

Application: a person walks past a place of an embarrassing event and tries to think of something else.

Think/no think (intentional forgetting).

Application: after retrieving some items on a list, related items are harder to recall.

Retrieval-induced forgetting.

Application: patient H.M. mows the grass but cannot recall meeting you 30 seconds ago.

Implicit (procedural) memory is intact while explicit memory is impaired; evidence for distinct conscious vs. unconscious memory systems.

Application: people fail to notice a gorilla while counting basketball passes. Explain with each consciousness theory.

GWT: gorilla not broadcast to the workspace. IIT: gorilla was the blurry part (low integration). HOT: no 'read receipt' from prefrontal cortex. RPT: insufficient recurrent feedback, gorilla stayed in the periphery.

Application: a doctor diagnoses a skin condition faster because it looks like a recent patient, even though the similarity is irrelevant.

Exemplar model (Brooks et al., 1991). Risk: irrelevant similarity biases diagnosis.

Application: a clinician overlooks a patient whose symptoms do not match the 'textbook' presentation.

Prototype model (typicality bias); also fuzzy boundaries in diagnostic categories.

Application: a hiring manager favors candidates who match an 'ideal leader' image.

Prototype model: the prototype shapes judgments of people who do not match it (can reflect stereotypes, per Foster-Hanson & Rhodes).

Application: a child thinks a worm shares a human biological property but a toy monkey does not.

Theory-based model (Carey, 1985): explanatory knowledge beats surface similarity.

Application: a person says 'a pet fish' is not just a blend of typical pets and typical fish.

Prototype model limit: the pet-fish concept is not built from the prototypes of its parts.

Application: a verification task is faster for 'a canary is yellow' than 'a canary has wings'.

Hierarchical network model (Collins & Quillian, 1969): properties stored at different nodes; moving between nodes takes time.

Application: 'a robin is a bird' is verified faster than 'a chicken is a bird'.

Typicality effect; challenges the hierarchical network model and supports prototype thinking.

Application: 'blender can be loud' is verified faster after 'leaves can be rustling' than after 'cranberries can be tart'.

Modality-switching cost: supports grounded cognition (modality-specific information). Amodal theorists note it may reflect how knowledge is USED, not stored.

Application: people born blind show typical brain involvement for object concepts.

Evidence for amodal/cross-modal accounts (concepts not dependent on a particular sense).

Application: a patient cannot read nonwords like 'clat' but reads familiar words.

Phonological dyslexia: sublexical route damaged (DRC).

Application: a patient reads 'steak' to rhyme with 'teak' and regularizes irregular words.

Surface dyslexia: lexical routes damaged; over-reliance on spelling-to-sound rules (DRC).

Application: a reader pronounces 'pint' to rhyme with 'mint'.

Applying GPC rules only (sublexical route); the lexical routes would retrieve the correct pronunciation.

Application: a listener hears /k/, /ae/, /t/ and narrows possible words.

Cohort model: incompatible candidates are eliminated until the uniqueness point.

Application: noisy workplace where top-down context helps you understand spoken orders.

TRACE (interactive, top-down from words/context to sounds), until noise overwhelms context.

Application: a speaker says a wrong sound or word substitution; aphasia errors.

Interactive two-step model (Dell): activation spreads between levels and can produce errors; WEAVER++ predicts discrete stages with no interaction.

Application: face recognition drops sharply when faces are inverted but objects are fine.

Inversion effect: faces rely on holistic processing; objects do not.

Application: a patient recognizes everyday objects but not family members' faces.

Prosopagnosia (faces impaired, objects intact); contrast with visual form agnosia.

Application: preschoolers learn more when lesson-relevant pictures are included.

Relevant 'distractions' can support learning (King & Markant, 2022): selective attention and prior knowledge help children attend to relevant information.

Application: reading in dyslexia with a typical perceptual span but slow reading and many regressions.

Difficulty is in word recognition/phonological processing, not visual uptake (Whitford et al., 2023).