John Q. Public - A Computational Model of Political
Cognition
John Q. Public incorporates, in a principled and coherent way, the well-established proper-
ties of human cognitive and affective mechanisms. Specifically, within a semantic node-link
network, J.Q.Public formalizes the distinction between serial vs. parallel processing; mod-
ularity; priming, practice, recency, and the fan effect on recall via a spreading activation
mechanism; it distinguishes between automatic and deliberate processing (Bargh, 1997;
Fazio, 1986) and operates within a dual-process paradigm (e.g. Petty and Wegener, 1999).
Most importantly it incorporates an affective mechanism based on ’Hot Cognition’ (Abel-
son et al, 1983; Lodge & Taber, 2002) and Zajonc’s (1980) ’Primacy of Affect’ that are core
assumptions in contemporary psychological models of the role of affect in social-cognition.
Finally, the model integrates on-line processing within a semantic structure of LTM.
In the following section, we present a set of axioms that underlie John Q. Public,
and then present a set of interdependent cognitive/affective mechanisms (computational
algorithms) that operationalize them.
Axioms
The axioms underlying John Q. Public’s cognitive/affective mechanisms are drawn from
four well-established theories of the structure of human information processing: The clas-
sical cognitive paradigm (see Eysenck & Keane, 1990); automaticity (Bargh, 2000), dual-
process models (Chaiken & Trope, 1999); and a mechanism for integrating affect into the
judgment process.
Axiom 1 (From Classical Cognitive Paradigm)
• (Modularity) Human cognitive system consists of relatively independent subsystems
(modules) such as a central system, goal system, and memory system.
• (Parallel vs. Serial Processing) Cognitive processes are a mixture of parallel (asyn-
chronous) and serial processing of information.
• (Adaptivity and Efficiency) Human cognitive mechanism is adaptive to the structure
of external environment and has evolved to be an efficient information-processing
mechanism.
• (Memory) Human long-term memories are semantically structured. A unit of infor-
mation in memory becomes more accessible (active) the more often it is accessed (a
practice effect), if it is used more recently (a recency effect), or if it is associated
with the information being currently processed (a priming effect through spreading
2
These axioms from classical cognitive paradigm are built in the ACT-R architecture. For more detail,
see Anderson et al (1990, 1997, 2002).
3
Convention