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Defining features versus incidental correlates of Type 1 and Type 2 processing

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Abstract

Many critics of dual-process models have mistaken long lists of descriptive terms in the literature for a full-blown theory of necessarily co-occurring properties. These critiques have distracted attention from the cumulative progress being made in identifying the much smaller set of properties that truly do define Type 1 and Type 2 processing. Our view of the literature is that autonomous processing is the defining feature of Type 1 processing. Even more convincing is the converging evidence that the key feature of Type 2 processing is the ability to sustain the decoupling of secondary representations. The latter is a foundational cognitive requirement for hypothetical thinking.

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Notes

  1. Keren and Schul (2009) use the fractionation of the automaticity concept that we discussed previously as a negative example: “Bargh (1994) noted, almost 15 years ago, that automaticity may not be a single concept in the sense that manifestations of automaticity (such as non-awareness, non-intentionality, efficiency, and non-controllability) are not aligned” (p. 539). But as we noted above, years before Bargh (1994), Stanovich (1990) argued the same thing. However, contrary to Keren and Schul’s implication, the fractionation of the concept into its essential features versus its incidental correlates helped rather than hurt the reading field. The latter field still profits from the distinction between Type 1 and Type 2 processing.

  2. Keren and Schul (2009) have fun with other caricatures: “We are [concerned]…with the very strong claim that a limited set of binary attributes can be combined in only one, single, unique way, permitting the existence of exactly two systems (and no more!)” (p. 538). The “no more” is funny, but nonetheless a straw man since that has never been an assumption of dual-process theory, as Gilbert (1999) noted over a decade ago: “Few of the psychologists whose chapters appear in this volume would claim that the dual processes in their models necessarily correspond to the activity of two distinct brain structures…. Psychologists who champion dual-process models are not usually stuck on two. Few would come undone if their models were recast in terms of three processes, or four, or even five. Indeed, the only number they would not happily accept is one, because claims about dual processes in psychology are not so much claims about how many processes there are, but claims about how many processes there aren’t. And the claim is this: There aren’t one” (pp. 3–4).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Human Development and Applied Psychology, University of Toronto, 252 Bloor St. West, Toronto, ON, M5S 1V6, Canada

    Keith E. Stanovich

  2. Department of Psychology, York University, Toronto, ON, M3J 1P3, Canada

    Maggie E. Toplak

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  1. Keith E. Stanovich
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  2. Maggie E. Toplak
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Correspondence to Keith E. Stanovich.

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Stanovich, K.E., Toplak, M.E. Defining features versus incidental correlates of Type 1 and Type 2 processing. Mind Soc 11, 3–13 (2012). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11299-011-0093-6

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