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{{Short description|Categories of cognitive processing}}
'''Automatic and Controlled Processes (ACP)''' are the two categories of cognitive processing. All cognitive processes fall into one or both of those two categories. The amounts of “processing power”, [[attention]], and effort a process requires is the primary factor used to determine whether it’s a controlled or an automatic process. An automatic process is capable of occurring without the need for attention, and the awareness of the initiation or operation of the process, and without drawing upon general processing resources or interfering with other concurrent thought processes.<ref name="Bargh">{{cite book|last=Bargh|first=John|title=Unintended Thought|year=1989|publisher=Guilford Publications|author2=James S. Uleman}}</ref> Put simply, an automatic process is unintentional, involuntary, effortless (not consumptive of limited processing capacity), and occurring outside awareness. Controlled Processes are defined as a process that is under the flexible, intentional control of the individual, that he or she is consciously aware of, and that are effortful and constrained by the amount of attentional resources available at the moment.<ref name=Bargh />▼
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
▲'''Automatic and
==Characteristics==
===Automatic processes===
When examining the label "automatic" in social psychology,
That being said automatic effects fall into three classes: Those that occur prior to conscious awareness (preconscious); those that require some form of conscious processing but that produce an unintended outcome (postconscious); and those that require a specific type of intentional, goal directed processing (goal-dependent).
Preconscious automaticity requires only the triggering [[proximal]] stimulus event, and occur prior to or in the absence of any conscious awareness of that event.<ref name=Bargh /> Because they occur without our conscious awareness they are unnoticeable, uncontrollable, and nearly effortless.
Postconscious automaticity depends on recent conscious experience for its occurrence.<ref name=Bargh /> This postconscious influence on processing can be defined as the non-conscious consequences of conscious thought.<ref name=Bargh /> The conscious experience may be intentional, or it may be unintentional, what is important is that the material be in awareness.<ref name=Bargh /> Most things we are aware of are driven by the environment, and one does not intend or control the flood of these [[perceptual]] experiences, yet they still result in postconscious effects. In other words we need to consciously engage in something and depending on the experience we will unconsciously think, and or behave a certain way. In the classic [[Bobo doll experiment]] a child watches a video of an adult acting aggressive towards a Bobo doll. Later when the child is put in the room with that same doll, the child was more likely to also engage in that act, versus children who didn't watch the video. In a study participants were primed with the stereotype of professors by being told to imagine a typical professor for 5 min and to list (a conscious act) the behaviors, lifestyle, and appearance attributes of this typical professor.<ref name=DJJ>{{cite journal|last=Dijksterhuis|first=AP|author2=Ad van Knippenberg|title=The Relation Between Perception and Behavior, or How to Win a Game of Trivial Pursuit|journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|year=1998|___location=University of Nijmegen}}</ref> After they were primed they had to perform a general knowledge task. The results were that the participants in the professor condition outperformed those in the control conditions(those not primed at all).<ref name=DJJ />▼
▲Postconscious automaticity depends on recent conscious experience for its occurrence.<ref name=Bargh />
Goal-dependant automaticity concerns skill and thought processes that require a goal to engage in them. This process is much similar to postconscious in that it requires conscious awareness to be initiated, but after that it can be guided outside of awareness by the unconscious mind. So a good example would be driving a car. In order to drive a car you need to consciously have a goal to drive somewhere. When engaged in driving (only with enough practice) one can almost operate the car almost entirely without conscious awareness.<ref name=Yale /> However more attentional control and decision making are needed when introduced to novel(reference) situations like driving through an unfamiliar town. The process needs to be learned enough that it can be automatic, requiring little conscious thought as to how to do it.▼
▲Goal-
===Controlled processes===
One definition of a controlled process is an intentionally-initiated sequence of cognitive activities.<ref name=Scneider>{{cite journal|last=Schneider|first=Shiffrin|title=Controlled Automatic Human Information Processing|year=1977|issue=I. Detection, Search, and Attention
Forster and Lavie found that the ability to focus on a task is influenced by processing capacity and perceptual load.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Forster|first1=Sophie|last2=Lavie|first2=Nilli|date=March 2008|title=Failures to ignore entirely irrelevant distractors: The role of load.|journal=Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied|volume=14|issue=1|pages=73–83|doi=10.1037/1076-898x.14.1.73|pmid=18377168|pmc=2672049|issn=1939-2192}}</ref> Processing capacity is the amount of incoming information a person can process or handle at one time. Perceptual load is how difficult the task is. A low load task is when one can think less about the task they are involved in. A high load task is when one needs to devote all their focus to the task. If they become distracted then they won't be able to accomplish the task.
In a study, participants were randomly assigned into two conditions, one requiring one task (small cognitive load) and one requiring two tasks (heavy cognitive load). In the one-task condition, participants were told that they would hear an anti- or pro-abortion speech and would have to diagnose the speaker's attitude toward abortion. The two-task condition had the same first assignment, but they were required to switch spots with the speaker and take their place after that. Even after being specifically told that they would be given further instructions at the next step, their cognitive load was affected in this study. Participants in the two-task condition performed more poorly than the one-task condition simply because they had the next task on their mind (they had extra cognitive load). Basically, the more tasks someone tries to manage at the same time, the more their performance will suffer.
===Processes with ambiguous categorization===
Some actions utilize a combination of automatic and controlled processes. One example is brushing your teeth. At any point, you could think about each tooth as you individually scrub them, but for the most part, the action is automatic.<ref>{{Cite journal|last1=Jansma|first1=Johan Martijn|last2=Ramsey|first2=Nick F.|last3=Slagter|first3=Heleen A.|last4=Kahn|first4=Rene S.|date=August 2001|title=Functional Anatomical Correlates of Controlled and Automatic Processing|journal=Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience|language=en|volume=13|issue=6|pages=730–743|doi=10.1162/08989290152541403|pmid=11564318|s2cid=23641981|issn=0898-929X}}</ref> Another example is playing a musical instrument. After learning where your fingers should be placed and how to play certain notes you no longer have to think about what your fingers are doing. Your controlled process are then engaged in thinking about dynamics and intonation. Some processes can even start as controlled and become more automatic. Some cognitive processes are difficult to categorize as distinctly automatic or controlled, either because they contain components of both types of process or because the phenomena are difficult to define or observe. An example of the former is driving a car. An example of the latter is [[Flow (psychology)|flow]].
Process of breathing, automatic and controlled, easily observed.
===Flow===
{{main|Flow (psychology)}}
Flow has been described as involving highly
Flow has been difficult to study, however, because it is difficult to produce in a controlled laboratory setting. Most experiments have relied heavily on correlating the presence of flow with various attributes of the task and the subjects' reported experiences. Of those correlations, subjects experiencing flow generally report that they perceive a good match between the task requirements and their skills (e.g. a professional basketball player in a professional basketball game.) Task structure and the clarity of the goal of the task are also thought to be related to when flow occurs.<ref name="Moller"/> All of these aspects of flow imply that there must be an opportunity to suppress other controlled processes, as well as inhibit certain types of automatic processes.
A study involving [[
"A person does not need to be told to pay attention to a stimulus that captures attention quickly and effortlessly."<ref name=Scneider /> In many cases, explicitly directing
On the other hand, situations in which autonomy is encroached upon (for example, if the individual must always control his/her actions to abide by rules imposed by the task) are thought to inhibit flow.<ref name="Moller">Moller, A. C., Meier, B. P., & Wall, R. D. 2010. Developing an experimental induction of flow: Effortless action in the lab. In B. Bruya (Ed.), Effortless attention: A new perspective in the cognitive science of attention and action (pp.
==See also==
* [[Conscious mind]]▼
* [[Dual process theory]]
* [[Modularity of mind]]
* [[Cognitive Load]]▼
▲* [[Conscious mind]]
==References==
{{reflist}}
===Further reading===
* {{cite book|last=Kahneman|first=Daniel|author-link=Daniel Kahneman|year=2013|orig-year=2011|title=Thinking, Fast and Slow|title-link=Thinking, Fast and Slow|place=New York|publisher=Farrar, Straus and Giroux|isbn=978-0374533557}}
{{Evolutionary psychology}}
[[Category:Cognitive psychology]]
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