AUTOMATIC AND CONTROLLED PROCESSES IN THE ANALYSIS OF HIERARCHICAL STRUCTURE

Targets are identified faster if they appear at the same level (global vs. local) as the target on the previous trial. This effect has been attributed to a controlled attentional process wherein participants at tend to the level containing the target on trial n - 1, thus facilitat ing performance if target level repents on trial n. An alternative exp lanation (Lamb & Yund, 1996) is that automatic activation of level-spe cific neural mechanisms is responsible. The controlled-process hypothe sis predicts better performance whenever target level is predictable, because participants can anticipate, and thus attend to, the appropria te level. The automatic-process hypothesis predicts better performance when target level repeats, regardless of target-level predictability. In the present studies, level repetitions facilitated performance reg ardless of target-level predictability. The data support the automatic -process explanation of level repetition and other attentional effects . The data illustrate how an automatic process can give rise to perfor mance that seems to reflect more cognitive or strategic mechanisms.