Cognitive load privileges memory-based over data-driven processing, not group-level over person-level processing
The first paper from Daniel Skorich’s PhD has been published online at BJSP. This establishes the empirical support for our view that group information is not used in preference to person information due to resource limitations. This paper overturns a classic assumption of the cognitive load literature.
Abstract
In the current paper, we argue that categorization and individuation, as traditionally discussed and as experimentally operationalized, are defined in terms of two confounded underlying dimensions: a person/group dimension and a memory-based/data-driven dimension. In a series of three experiments, we unconfound these dimensions and impose a cognitive load. Across the three experiments, two with laboratory-created targets and one with participants’ friends as the target, we demonstrate that cognitive load privileges memory-based over data-driven processing, not group- over person-level processing. We discuss the results in terms of their implications for conceptualizations of the categorization/individuation distinction, for the equivalence of person and group processes, for the ultimate ‘purpose’ and meaningfulness of group-based perception and, fundamentally, for the process of categorization, broadly defined.
