cal–structural learning mechanisms (Case, 1998; Pascual-Leone, 1995; Pas-
cual-Leone & Goodman, 1979), which we call respectivelyClearning andL
learning. There are also innate general-purpose mechanisms (hidden opera-
tors) that aid in the situated effortless here-and-now integration ofspatial re-
lations(relations of coexistence among schemes, that is, the cortical brain
processes related to the “where” question) and oftime relations(sequential
relations among schemes; these are cortical processes that by collating cur-
rent sequential dependency relations among activated schemes help to con-
struct thedistal objectsof experience, with their pragmatic or conceptual
meaning, enabling construction of objects’ identity that clarifies “what” is the
object at hand). These are processes that we respectively callSoperator and
Toperator (Pascual-Leone, 1995, 2000a).
This collection of general-purpose brain mechanisms, together with a
modest repertoire of innate schemes (which include innate affects and emo-
tions generating affective goals), enables currently activated affective–emo-
tion schemes within the person to initiate activities that are prompted by the
situation or the current internal state. These activities are caused jointly (i.e.,
overdetermined) by thedominant(most activated) set of compatible schemes
currently active in the person’s repertoire (long-term memory). Schemes may
be dominant because they are activated by the situational context, or because
they satisfy affective goals, and thus receive activation from corresponding
affects–emotions (whether implicit or explicitly experienced). Alternatively,
schemes may be dominant because the current set of executive schemes (i.e.,
E) directs mental-attentionaleffortto them (i.e.,M–capacity) causing their
hyperactivation. Likewise, contextually activated schemes that are incongru-
ous with the dominant set of affective goals will tend to be actively inhibited
(by mental-attentionalinterruptionorI-operator monitored byE). In this
manner, performances that are relevant to the currently dominant set of af-
fective–emotion schemes (which in turn result from affective–personal proc-
essing and its affective choice) emerge by way of an effortful executive-driven
action processing and an effortful but implicit action choice. Even truly-
novel performances emerge this way, overdetermined by sets of goal-relevant
compatible schemes that are together applied to the situation. This sort of
effortful processing strategyat the service of affective goals, which relevant
executive schemes formulate into cognitive goals, constitutes what in the pre-
vious section we called an X strategy.
There is also an alternativeautomatic(automatized)form of strategiesthat
results from automatic action processing driven by overlearned perceptual
cues of cognitive goals (often from automatized schemes) suitable to strong
affective goals. This is what we called Y strategies, which fast-track perform-
ance implementation from automatic action or perceptual processing during
initial moments of the situation, to unreflected production of the perform-
ance. Figure 8.2 provides a flow chart that illustrates schematically different
212 PASCUAL-LEONE AND JOHNSON