Abstract
Individual differences in cognition are important for both theories of cognition and for theories of differential psychology. Furthermore, this topic is important for the unification and future development of psychology that runs the risk of fragmenting into a disparate number of loosely connected disciplines with no central theoretical core. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of some fundamental, but thorny, issues that need to be acknowledged and addressed before we can start to lay the firm foundations upon which to build the integration of the two great traditions of experimental/cognitive and differential psychology. Specifically, this chapter focuses on how to build a general model of behaviour control, which would provide the theoretical hub around which the particular issues revolve.
This chapter is dedicated to the memory of Błażej Szymura
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Notes
- 1.
Qualia (singular is “quale”) is a term used in philosophy to denote the subjective quality of mind, referring to the way things seem to us (from the Latin “what sort” or “what kind”) in the form of properties of sensory experience such as sensations (e.g., pain) and percepts (e.g., colour).
- 2.
However, the zombie may think and feel that they are conscious: this raises the interesting possibility of what we non-zombies think and feel as consciousness is nothing really of the sort, but a grand illusion of the brain (for further discussion, see Corr, 2006). This possibility need not detract us from the use of the term zombie here: clearly, some of our behaviours can be shown experimentally to be zombie-like, and these stand apart from those behaviours to which we assign conscious awareness.
- 3.
The systems of RST are not exclusively “on-line” (reflexive) as they have representations at all levels of the behavioural hierarchy. However, they embody many on-line features, especially at the lower and more primitive levels of defensive reactions.
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Corr, P.J. (2010). Individual Differences in Cognition: in Search of a General Model of Behaviour Control. In: Gruszka, A., Matthews, G., Szymura, B. (eds) Handbook of Individual Differences in Cognition. The Springer Series on Human Exceptionality. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-1210-7_1
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