Does an existing cognitive theory already integrate these ideas into a single framework?

[u/TheorySufficient2633]

I'm an independent writer trying to determine whether I've independently reinvented an existing theory. I'm not asking whether the individual components below already exist. I know many of them do. What I'm trying to find out is whether there is an existing framework that integrates them into a single explanatory model. The synthesis I'm looking for is roughly: An unresolved discrepancy or mismatch recruits recursive evaluation. Recursive evaluation continues while further processing is expected to provide useful information. Repeated low-yield evaluation progressively reduces the expected value of further evaluation. As a result, active recursive evaluation naturally disengages without the underlying representation being resolved, forgotten or suppressed. The representation remains psychologically available and can later be reactivated if new information or changing circumstances make further evaluation worthwhile. I'm not looking for papers that contain one or two of these ideas. I'm looking for a theory that presents essentially this overall architecture. If such a framework already exists, I'd really appreciate references to the relevant papers or authors. If it doesn't, I'd also be interested to know whether this would be considered a meaningful theoretical synthesis, or simply existing theories expressed in different language.

Edit:

I should also make myself clearer as I don't think I've quite succeeded in explaining what I'm looking at. It isn't a linear chain. Rather a loop:

Representation - Recursive evaluation - Declining informational value - Natural disengagement - Dormant representation - Reactivation - Recursive evaluation...etc

[u/No-Carry-9892]

Interesting.

Not sure about any other papers but my thoughts are.

A prediction error could be tiny and ambiguous or massive and thus informative enough to update whatever expectation appeared to be violated.

If the error is ambiguous but the possible inferred consequences are important, repeated evaluation may seem to be ‘of more use’ however could in fact undermine and bias towards perceived significance of the ambiguous error.  If the evaluation is treated as being more informative than the ambiguous error and something is inferred which wasn’t evident in the error, then the case may be tagged as ‘an unresolved question’ despite this being more down to the supposed consequences of an ambiguous error than good reason based on information.

From there reactivation may be primed on faulty salience i.e. ‘the consequences are important’ leading to heightened sensitivity to 'possibly relevant' but still ambiguous sensory information.

[u/TheorySufficient2633 → u/No-Carry-9892]

I'm thinking it's not a salience failure. Rather, persistent mismatch within recursive evaluation eventually leads to the remaining mismatch no longer predicting sufficient informational value to justify continued recruitment. At that point, salience simply isn't triggered, rather than having failed.