THE AVAILABILITY VERSUS THE USE OF PARTIAL INFORMATION - MULTIPLE LEVELS OF SELECTIVE PROCESSING BETWEEN PERCEPTION AND ACTION

Temporal overlap of cognitive processes occurs when partial informatio n about a stimulus activates associated responses before the stimulus has been fully identified. Recent evidence obtained with psychophysiol ogical measures suggests that such overlap sometimes does, and sometim es does not occur. In this contribution, we argue that in order to und erstand why, we have to distinguish between selection of partial infor mation for perception and selection of partial information for control over activation of responses. We discuss several mechanisms and facto rs that may modulate the temporal overlap of mental processes because they selectively influence the perceptual availability or the use of p artial information.