The contributions to this volume, the sixteenth in the prestigious Attention and Performance series, revisit the issue of modularity, the idea that many functions are independently realized in specialized, autonomous modules. Although there is much evidence of modularity in the brain, there is also reason to believe that the outcome of processing, across domains, depends on the synthesis of a wide range of constraining influences. The twenty-four chapters in Attention and Performance XVI look at how these influences are integrated in perception, attention, language comprehension, and motor control. They consider the mechanisms of information integration in the brain; examine the status of the modularity hypothesis in light of efforts to understand how information integration can be successfully achieved; and discuss information integration from the viewpoints of psychophysics, physiology, and computational theory. A Bradford Book. Attention and Performance series.

Attention and Performance XIV, provides a broad, historic, and timely synthesis of the empirical and theoretical ideas on which performance theory now rests.

In 1966 the first meeting of the Association for the Study of Attention and Performance was held in the Netherlands to promote the emerging science of cognitive psychology. This volume is based on the most recent conference, held in Israel thirty years later. The focus of the conference was the interaction between theory and application. The organizers chose the specific topic, cognitive regulation of performance, because it is an area where contemporary theories of cognitive processes meet the everyday challenges posed by human interactions with complex systems. Present-day technological systems impose on the operator a variety of supervisory functions, such as input and output monitoring, allocation of cognitive resources, choice of strategies, and regulation of cognitive operations. A challenge for engineers and designers is to accommodate the cognitive requirements called for by these systems. The book is divided into four sections: the presentation and representation of information, cognitive regulation of acquisition and performance, consciousness and behavior, and special populations: aging and neurological disorders. Contributors Nicole D. Anderson, Moshe Bar, Lynn Bardell, Alice E. Barnes, Irving Biederman, Robert A. Bjork, Richard A. Block, Fergus I. M. Craik, Heiner Deubel, John Dunlosky, Ido Erev, Ronald Fisher, John M. Flach, Barry Goettl, Morris Goldsmith, Daniel Gopher, Lynn Hasher, Okihide Hikosaka, Larry L. Jacoby, Peter Kalocsai, Colleen Kelley, David E. Kieras, Roberta Klatzky, Asher Koriat, Arthur F. Kramer, Elisabetta Ladavas, John L. Larish, Susan J. Lederman, John Long, Cynthia P. May, Guiliana Mazzoni, Brian McElree, David Meyer, Satoru Miyauchi, Neville Moray, Louis Narens, Thomas O. Nelson, Raymond S. Nickerson, Lynne Reder, J. Wesley Regian, Ian Robertson, Wolfgang Schneider, Christian D. Schunn, Wayne Shebilske, Shinsuke Shimojo, Suresh Subramaniam, Tom N. Trainham, Jehoshua Tsal, Timothy A. Weber, Christopher Wickens, Rose T. Zacks, Dan Zakay

The thirty-two contributions discuss evidence from psychological experiments with healthy and brain-damaged subjects, functional imaging, electrophysiology, and computational modeling.