Automatic and controlled processes: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 19:35, 29 June 2020

Revision as of 18:38, 2 August 2020

Line 1:

{{Use dmy dates|date=SeptemberJuly 20152020}}

'''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 />

Line 5:

===Automatic processes===

When examining the label "automatic" in social psychology, we find that some processes are intended, and others require recent conscious and intentional processing of related information. Automatic processes are more complicated than people may think.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Fridland|first=Ellen|date=November 2017|title=Automatically minded|journal=Synthese|language=en|volume=194|issue=11|pages=4337–4363|doi=10.1007/s11229-014-0617-9|issn=0039-7857}}</ref> Some examples of automatic processes include motor skills, implicit biases, procedural tasks, and priming.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Trumpp|first=Natalie M.|last2=Traub|first2=Felix|last3=Kiefer|first3=Markus|date=2013-05-31|editor-last=Chao|editor-first=Linda|title=Masked Priming of Conceptual Features Reveals Differential Brain Activation during Unconscious Access to Conceptual Action and Sound Information|journal=PLoSPLOS ONEOne|language=en|volume=8|issue=5|pages=e65910|doi=10.1371/journal.pone.0065910|issn=1932-6203|pmc=3669239|pmid=23741518}}</ref>  The tasks that are listed can be done without the need for conscious attention. Implicit biases are snap judgments that people make without being aware that they made them. An example of an implicit bias is when someone is walking down the street at night and they see a dark shadow of a person. The person might automatically cross the street or they might be scared of that individual. This is all done in a fraction of a second without the person even knowing they are making that judgment about the person. Priming is when a stimulus from the environment changes the way one someone reacts to another stimulus.  An example of this is when someone sees a fast food sign and realizes they are hungry. This causes them to stop and get something to eat.

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).