Varying spread of neuronal activation determines the mode of thinking

Abstract

Information is processed through the transmission of neuronal activation in the brain. Usually theories and experiments are concerned with average behavior. However, individuals differ in the extent to which neuronal activation is spread in their internal networks. The spread theory proposed here outlines the changes that occur in processing if the tendency to spread activation deviates from the average. It is claimed that all cognitive processing has an associative and a directed aspect. The relative weight of these aspects is determined by the degree of spread captured by the latent variable ‘Disposition for Spread of Activation’ (DSA). If the spread of activation is average, DSA is defined as 0. If DSA is positive, i.e., enhanced, processing is more associative and less directed than average; if DSA is negative, i.e., reduced, processing is more directed and less associative than average. Purely associative and purely directed processing are the endpoints of a cognitive continuum. The character of actual processing is located between these endpoints and determined by DSA. Applications show that DSA seems to be the ‘missing link’ in various theories on cognition. (1) ‘Thinking’ can vary on a gradual scale between associative and directed; the actual mode of thinking is determined by DSA. (2) Innate enhanced DSA accounts for developmental dyslexia and its correlates. The explained variance in text‐reading fluency increases from 37% for proficient readers to 69% for developmental dyslexics; an increase attributed to enhanced DSA. (3) DSA is one of the ‘uncorrelated neuronal elements’ of Spearman’s g and appears in a two‐factor analysis on the structure of cognition. Since the two orthogonal factors are meaningful, axes should not be rotated as is standard practice. The communality of tests on intelligence varies up to 60%, to which the DSA‐ factor contributes by 17%. (4) Arousal optimizes performance by driving intra‐individually varying DSA: increasing arousal reduces DSA and renders ‘thinking’ more directed. The relationship contributes to an account of phenomena such as Creativity, Tip‐of‐the‐Tongue, Yerkes‐Dodson Law, Mind wandering and the adaptive gain theory of Aston‐Jones and Cohen (2005).