Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Cognitive Science Society

Theories of cognition that posit complementary dual-route processes afford better fits to the data when each routeexplains a part of the data not explained by the other route. However, such theories must also explain why each route isinvoked, lest one can fit any data set with enough routes. One possible explanation is that route selection is based on a least-costprinciple: the route that requires fewer cognitive resources (including time) relative to the goal at hand. We investigated thisexplanation with a dual-route version of visual search, where the target could be identified via opposing (easy or hard formsof) feature and conjunction search conditions. The data support a contextualized version of the least-cost principle in that thecost of computing least-cost also influences route selection: participants assessed alternatives, but only when the cost of thatassessment was relatively low.