Strategies and Automaticity: II. Dynamic Aspects of Strategy Adjustment

The temporal dynamics of strategic adjustment of response criteria were examined by comparing performance in blocked conditions, in which all stimulus-response mappings were either consistent (CM) or varied (VM), to performance in mixed conditions, in which CM and VM items were presented in the same block of trials. We examined the degree of flexibility that subjects exhibit in deploying differential response strategies. Surprisingly, Ss were unable to use a variety of informative pre-cues to rapidly shift between response strategies associated with automatic (CM) and nonautomatic (VM) processing. However, an analysis of sequential dependencies indicated that repetition of stimuli from the same class (CM vs. VM) gradually led to shifts in response strategies. These results are interpreted within the framework of an extension of M. Treisman and T.C. Williams's (1984) 2-stage criteria adjustment model.