Automaticity: Componential, Causal, and Mechanistic Explanations

Abstract

The review first discusses componential explanations of automaticity, which specify non/automaticity features (e.g., un/controlled, un/conscious, non/efficient, fast/slow) and their interrelations. Reframing these features as factors that influence processes (e.g., goals, attention, and time) broadens the range of factors that can be considered (e.g., adding stimulus intensity and representational quality). The evidence reviewed challenges the view of a perfect coherence among goals, attention, and consciousness, and supports the alternative view that (a) these and other factors influence the quality of representations in an additive way (e.g., little time can be compensated by extra attention or extra stimulus intensity) and that (b) a first threshold of this quality is required for unconscious processing and a second threshold for conscious processing. The review closes with a discussion of causal explanations of automaticity, which specify factors involved in automatization such as repetition and complexity, and a discussion of mechanistic explanations, which specify the low-level processes underlying automatization.

Aproximación a la automaticidad de los juicios evaluativos: Implicaciones de los errores en la atribución

“…Bargh (1994) propuso que todos los procesos psicológicos implicados en la cognición humana deben ser entendidos como un continuum que abarca desde aquellos procesos completamente automáticos (rápidos, no controlados, eficientes y generalmente subconscientes) hasta aquellos procesos completamente controlados (más lentos y separables de la percepción). Si bien la distinción entre ambos tipos de procesos es un hecho académicamente aceptado (Kahneman, 2012), conviene señalar que el concepto de automaticidad es ciertamente complejo, en el sentido de que la naturaleza de los factores implicados en este tipo de procesos es un tema de discusión académica (Moors, 2016). En relación a los procesos cognitivos automáticos, es importante destacar que si bien diversos procesos automáticos son generados por la percepción de estímulos físicos del mundo exterior -como la formación inmediata de impresiones en base a los rasgos físicos-, otros son el resultado de la percepción de estados corporales internos.…”

Brain bases of the automaticity via visual search task

“…A recent review on the concept of automaticity proposes viewing the descriptive features of automaticity as factors (e.g., the amount of attention and time dedicated to complete an action), in order to establish how they interact with the underlying processes of automatic behavior (Moors, 2015). In addition, this framework proposes going beyond Moors, 2015).…”

“…In addition, this framework proposes going beyond Moors, 2015). Interestingly, attention is seen as a factor that modulates the stimulus perception from both prior knowledge and the current perception, thus bringing a link between the classic question of whether or not attention takes part in automatic processing and the priority map theories.…”

“…Other examples are the ease of automatic processing in triggering an action in response to the presence of a specific and associated stimulus, and the way this stimulus-response was seen as more dependent on the significance of the stimulus than on the context itself. Finally, there is relatively independence between automatic behavior development and the learning of the stimulus-response relation itself (e.g., it was seen more as a matter of practice than successive modifications of the stimulus-response relation) Shiffrin, Dumais, and Schneider, 1981;.A recent review on the concept of automaticity proposes viewing the descriptive features of automaticity as factors (e.g., the amount of attention and time dedicated to complete an action), in order to establish how they interact with the underlying processes of automatic behavior (Moors, 2015). In addition, this framework proposes going beyond Moors, 2015).…”

“…That is, behavior (or the processes underlying it) should be considered as more or less automatized. Thus, in the event of comparing and deciding whether two actions are conducted under controlled or automatic processing, all the factors that describe them should be kept exactly equal, except one (Moors, 2015). However, the empirical evidence supporting this theory is yet to come.…”