No one doubts that immense variability exists at the neural level. Even when the identical stimulus is presented repeatedly within a single experimental session, the response of an individual neuron varies from trial to trial. Similarly, with lowlevel cognitive processes such as association, there is no disagreement concerning the existence of competing units. Models of associative memory, both symbolic (e.g., Gillilund & Shiffrin, 1984) and subsymbolic (e.g., Seidenberg & McClelland, 1990), are predicated on the assumptions that stimuli have multiple associations and that these varying associations influence the way in which we remember. Higher level cognition, however, has been treated differently. Many models are universalist: Everyone is depicted as proceeding in the same way when relevant stimuli are presented. Other models are comparative; they hypothesize different ways of thinking among groups defined on the basis of such characteristics as age, expertise, or aptitudes, but hypothesize a single consistent kind of reasoning within each group. Thus, 8-year-olds might be depicted as performing in one way and 5-year-olds in another, experts in one way and novices in another, people with high spatial ability in one way and those with low spatial ability in another, and so on. The finest differentiations that are typically made within these comparative approaches examine individual differences within people of a single age; for example, reflective 8-year-olds are described as taking a long time but answering accurately on the Matching Familar Figures Test, and impulsive 8-year-olds are described as answering more quickly but less accurately (Kogan, 1983). The main purpose of this chapter is to summarize the rapidly growing body of research suggesting that variability is actually a pervasive reality in high-level, as well as low-level, cognition. To place this work in context, however, it seems useful first to briefly consider some prominent examples of universalist and comparative models of cognition and then to consider why they might be proposed and widely accepted even if thinking is far more variable than they depict it as being. A great deal of cognitive research has been devoted to identifying the processing approach that people use on a particular task. This universalist approach has led to many influential models and theories.
The relation between navigation strategy and associative memory: An individual differences approach.