I’ve argued that much of the existing evidence for dual-process theories of learning and categorization is flawed, and I’ve aimed to develop better procedures and techniques to investigate this issue. In particular, I’ve focussed on critiques of evidence for the COVIS dual-process theory, and advocated the use of the Shanks-Darby experimental procedure. For an introduction to this topic area, see Wills et al. (2019), below.
Selected publications
Wills, A.J., Edmunds, C.E.R., Le Pelley, M.E., Milton, F., Newell, B.R., Dwyer, D.M., & Shanks, D.R. (2019). Dissociable learning processes, associative theory, and testimonial reviews: A comment on Smith and Church (2018). Psychonomic Bulletin & Review, 26, 1988-1993.
Edmunds, C.E.R., Milton, F., & Wills, A.J. (2018). Due process in dual process: Model-recovery simulations of decision-bound strategy analysis in category learning. Cognitive Science, 42, 833-860.
Edmunds, C.E.R., Wills, A.J., & Milton, F. (2019). Initial training with difficult items does not facilitate category learning. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 72, 151-167.
Milton, F., Bealing, P., Carpenter, K.L., Bennattayallah, A., & Wills, A.J. (2017). The neural correlates of similarity- and rule-based generalization. Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, 29, 150-166.
Carpenter, K., Wills, A.J., Bennattayallah, A., & Milton, F. (2016). A comparison of the neural correlates that underlie rule-based and information-integration category learning. Human Brain Mapping, 37, 3557–3574.
Maes, E., De Filippo, G., Inkster, A., Lea, S.E.G., De Houwer, J., D’Hooge, R., Beckers, T., & Wills, A.J. (2015). Feature- versus rule-based generalization in rats, pigeons and humans. Animal Cognition, 18, 1267-1284.
Edmunds, C.E.R., Milton, F., & Wills, A.J. (2015). Feedback can be superior to observational training for both rule-based and information-integration category structures. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology, 68, 1203-1222.
Newell, B.R., Moore, C.P., Wills, A.J., & Milton, F. (2013). Reinstating the frontal lobes? Having more time to think improves ‘implicit’ perceptual categorization. A comment on Filoteo, Lauritzen and Maddox (2010). Psychological Science, 24, 386-389.
Wills, A.J., Graham, S., Koh, Z., McLaren, I.P.L., & Rolland, M.D. (2011). Effects of concurrent load on feature- and rule-based generalization in human contingency learning. Journal of Experimental Psychology: Animal Behavior Processes, 37, 308-316.