Search for: All records

Amodio argues that social cognition research has for many decades relied on imprecise dual-process models that build on questionable assumptions about how people learn and represent information. He presents an alternative framework for explaining social behavior as the product of multiple dissociable memory systems, based on the idea that cognitive neuroscience has revealed evidence for the existence of separate systems underlying distinct forms of learning and memory. Although we applaud Amodio’s attempt to build bridges between social cognition, learning psychology, and neuroscience, we believe that his interactive memory systems model rests on shaky grounds. In our view, the most significant limitation is the idea that behavioral dissociations provide strong evidence for multiple memory systems with functionally distinct learning mechanisms. A major problem with this idea is that behavioral dissociations can arise from processes during the retrieval and use of stored information, which does not require any assumptions about distinct memory systems or distinct forms of learning.