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This paper presents a «pluralistic» approach to cognitive functioning and reports an experiment designed to test it. This approach is called «pluralistic» because it assumes that, in most of situations, subjects have at their disposal several processes likely to fill the same function, and that simultaneous or successive activation of these different processes in the course of problem solving may boost a self-organizing dynamic.
A face categorization task, which can be solved either by an holistic processing mode or by an analytic processing mode, is used to test these assumptions. The specific hypothesis which is tested is that holistic processing may play a guiding role for subsequent analytic processing. More precisely, it is expected that subjects having used an holistic mode of processing in the category learning phase of the experiment, will discover more rapidly the rule in a subsequent phase of concept discovery. The results do not confirm this hypothesis. Our interpretation suggests that this kind of experiment has to be conducted again with other stimuli than faces (for which the holistic mode of processing seems special) and with some modifications in the concept discovery phase.
