The Evolution
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straightforward role in many cognitive actions, it is in effect made
invisible by virtue of its efficiency and adaptability.
Accordingly, the theorist is confronted with a formidable problem
precisely because memory itself is so flexible, and any number of
cognitive experiments, however well executed, will not allow him to
map out its cognitive structure, unless of course they are specifically
designed to exploit those points of inflexibility predicted by
psycho-evolutionary theory. It is with intersection tasks that memory
finds itself most restricted, and they must inevitably play an expanding
role in the attempt to illuminate the organization of memory. Such
tasks must be used to discover what part-whole links and whole-to-whole
links are at work in memory, for these are the links that steer cognitive
flow. Any theory that ignores these links cannot hope to account for
the actions of memory at its deepest level.