Controlled information processing, automaticity, and the burden of proof

Abstract

Cognitive psychologists often distinguish between voluntary and involuntary/automatic processes in attention and cognitive control. Dedicated experimental paradigms have been developed to isolate involuntary information processing, but these paradigms tend to assume a rigid and inflexible process that is either stimulus-driven or built up through simple repetition. In contrast, voluntary information processing is often assumed when processing is in line with arbitrarily defined task-specific goals. Here I review evidence from multiple cases suggesting that ostensibly goal-directed cognitive processes may not be so voluntary and controlled. It is argued that automatic processes can be conditionalized to reflect the task relevance of the stimuli and selection history in a variety of ways, rapidly and flexibly adjusting in order to facilitate future goal-directed behavior. As a result, many studies assumed to have measured a voluntary cognitive process have likely measured an amalgam of voluntary and automatic processes, thus blurring the distinction between the two. Automaticity may be much broader and more sophisticated than has previously been thought, which has wide-reaching implications for our conception of human cognitive control.

The influence of threat and aversive motivation on conflict processing in the Stroop task

“…With reward contingencies, distraction effects from reward-related words (Carsten et al, 2019;Krebs et al, 2010) could be explained as a spillover consequence of motivated attention (see Anderson, 2018): Participants preferentially attended to reward-associated colors in an effort to maximize gains, and this bias could not be restricted to the taskrelevant (color-ink) dimension. This is line with theories that suggest reward increases biased competition, essentially improving the signal-to-noise ratio of reward-associated stimuli (Della Libera & Chelazzi, 2006;Desimone & Duncan, 1995;Engelmann & Pessoa, 2007).…”

Embracing integration and complexity: placing emotion within a science of brain and behaviour

“…Here, briefly, it is important to consider that "volitional behavior" is also characterised by properties of "semi-flexibility." A growing number of investigators have persuasively argued that "control" is much more "automatic" than previously understood (see Anderson, 2017;Moors, Boddez, & De Houwer, 2017). For example, Moors et al (2017) discuss the idea that goal-directed processes should not be viewed as restricted to emotion regulation but also play a role in the initial causation of emotional action tendencies.…”

“…They suggest that, if emotional actions are defined as ensuing from action tendencies with control precedence (those that take priority over other action tendencies), because these action tendencies ensue from stimuli that are relevant for highly valued goals, then there should be no a priori reason to deny the role of goal-directed processes in the causation of emotional actions. More generally, several investigators have proposed that the distinction between goal-directed and stimulus-driven information processing needs to be reconsidered (Anderson, 2017;Awh, Belopolsky, & Theeuwes, 2012;Melnikoff & Bargh, 2018;Pessoa, 2013). In a complementary fashion, there is a considerable body of research documenting the ways in which "automatic" emotional processing is influenced by awareness, attention, context, and other high-level factors (for example, Pessoa, 2005;Pessoa, 2013).…”

Detours increase local knowledge—Exploring the hidden benefits of self-control failure

“…Hard-wired processes help us to feed and mate, but also make us susceptible to addictive substances, highcaloric food, and internet pornography [17,18]. Learned habits serve us well and save us processing costs in most cases, but sometimes make self-control especially hard as in the wellknown Stroop task [19,20]. However, apart from pitting automatization against self-control, research has paid too little attention to the real costs of self-control and the hidden benefits of self-control failure.…”