How Do Information Processing Systems Deal with Conflicting Information? Differential Predictions for Serial, Parallel, and Coactive Models

Abstract

In this paper, we analyze how different information-processing architectures deal with conflicting information. A robust finding in psychological research is that response times are slower when processing conflicting sources of information (e.g., naming the color of the word RED when printed in green in the well-known Stroop task) than when processing congruent sources of information (e.g., naming the color of the word GREEN when printed in green). We suggest that the effect of conflicting information depends on the processing architectures and derive a new measure of information processing called the conflict contrast function, which is indicative of how different architectures perform with..