Dual Process Theory Essay

Dual process theory contends that thoughts and behaviors can be affected by top-down, controlled processes or bottom-up, automatic processes. The history of dual process theories can be linked back to William James (1890), but were popularized in the 1970s and 1980s in the fields of social and cognitive psychology to explain attitudes, reasoning, and decision making (Barrett, Tugate, & Engle, 2004; Frankish & Evans, 2009). In some fields, dual process theories have become the source of spirited debate (e.g., Wixted, 2007). Our view is that dual process theories have been limited by taking an isolation approach rather than considering how top-down and bottom-up processes are interactive systems. In the present article, we will elaborate on how top-down and bottom-up processes interact dynamically to support prospective memory.
AN OVERVIEW OF PROSPECTIVE MEMORY
Remembering to execute delayed intentions, commonly known as prospective memory, is integral to daily living (e.g., remembering to tell a friend happy birthday),
We contend that this “either monitoring or spontaneous retrieval” isolation approach is misguided because it ignores the diversity of daily prospective memory challenges and advances in cognitive process dynamics found in related fields (e.g., Braver et al., 2007). Therefore, we developed the Dynamic Multiprocess Framework (Scullin, McDaniel, & Shelton, 2013), which principally argues that monitoring and spontaneous retrieval are interconnected—not isolated—processes that are fluidly moderated by environmental and individual difference factors (see also Gilbert, Hadjipavlou, & Raoelison, 2013). Recent behavioral, neuroimaging, and eye-tracking research on contextual and individual difference factors in young and older adults has provided empirical support for the Dynamic Multiprocess Framework’s view