Reviewer A:
This is outstanding theoretical work, resembling a handbook chapter
more than the usual journal article, and unlikely to be read just
once. It is a worthy sequel to the seminal 1969 paper that introduced
the Additive-Factor Method (AFM), and presents a taxonomy of methods
for inferring mental modules within which AFM can be regarded as a
special case. The paper complements and extends his recent chapter
titled 'Discovering mental processing stages' (Sternberg, 1998).
Written with the admirable clarity and conciseness that we have come to
expect from this author, it goes without saying that I consider the
paper highly appropriate as a contribution to the special issue in
honor of Andries Sanders. . . . Case 2 includes the AFM, but
multiplicative combination rules are also considered, and intriguing
examples demonstrate novel applications of the method to response
probability, response rate, reaction time, and ERPs. In my opinion,
the systematic exposition and analysis of Case 1 methods is even more
important and may turn out to advance cognitive neuroscience as much as
the AFM has advanced cognitive psychology.
Reviewer B:
I feel that this is an extremely useful piece of work. The author
reconciles [sic] one of the most important issues of cognitive
psychology, namely, the decomposition of a complex system into
meaningful parts. Readers will greatly appreciate that the author
brings together various methodological approaches on this topic,
because these are presently scattered across the literature. It is
very useful to see them evaluated and contrasted within a single
framework. Thus the limitations and possibilities of each approach
becomes apparent. The thoroughness of the theoretical analysis is
exemplary. I strongly recommend to publish this paper in Acta
Psychologica after a minor revision.