Automaticity

People make social inferences without intentions, awareness, or effort, i.e., spontaneously. We review recent findings on spontaneous social inferences (especially traits, goals, and causes) and closely related phenomena. We then describe current thinking on some of the most relevant processes, implicit knowledge, and theories. These include automatic and controlled processes and their interplay; embodied cognition, including mimicry; and associative versus rule-based processes. Implicit knowledge includes adult folk theories, conditions of personhood, self-knowledge to simulate others, and cultural and social class differences. Implicit theories concern Bayesian networks, recent attribution research, and questions about the utility of the disposition-situation dichotomy. Developmental research provides new insights. Spontaneous social inferences include a growing array of phenomena, but they have been insufficiently linked to other phenomena and theories. We hope the links suggeste...

Implementation intentions are plans that specify the when, where, and how of goal striving in advance, and have been shown to enhance rates of goal attainment compared to merely forming respective goal intentions. The present research investigated whether the accessibility of the speciWed situation (cue accessibility) and the strength of the association between the speciWed situation and the intended response (cue-response linkage) explain the impact of implementation intentions on goal achievement. Findings indicated that participants who planned how to undertake a verbal task better attained their goal compared to participants who did not form a plan. Crucially, implementation intention eVects were mediated by the accessibility of the speciWed cue and by the strength of cue-response links. These Wndings support the idea that implementation intentions beneWt performance because control of behavior is delegated to speciWed situational cues that initiate action automatically.

Over the past decade, fluent reading has come to be seen as a central component of skilled reading and a driving force in the literacy curriculum. However, much of this focus has centered on a relatively narrow definition of reading fluency, one that emphasizes automatic word recognition. This article attempts to expand this understanding by synthesizing several key aspects of research on reading fluency, including theoretical perspectives surrounding automaticity and prosody. It examines four major definitions of reading fluency and their relationship to accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. A proposed definition is presented. Finally, the implications of these definitions for current assessment and instruction are considered along with suggestions for reenvisioning fluency's role within the literacy curriculum.

Over the past decade, fluent reading has come to be seen as a central component of skilled reading and a driving force in the literacy curriculum. However, much of this focus has centered on a relatively narrow definition of reading fluency, one that emphasizes automatic word recognition. This article attempts to expand this understanding by synthesizing several key aspects of research on reading fluency, including theoretical perspectives surrounding automaticity and prosody. It examines four major definitions of reading fluency and their relationship to accuracy, automaticity, and prosody. A proposed definition is presented. Finally, the implications of these definitions for current assessment and instruction are considered along with suggestions for reenvisioning fluency's role within the literacy curriculum.

The book introduces Tadeusz Kotarbiński’s philosophy of action into the mainstream of contemporary action-theoretical debates. Piotr Makowski shows that Kotarbiński–Alfred Tarski’s teacher and one of the most important philosophers of the renowned Lvov-Warsaw school—proposed a groundbreaking, original, and (in at least a few respects) still fresh perspective in action theorizing. The book examines and develops Kotarbiński’s ideas in the context of the most recent discussions in the philosophy of action. The main idea behind Kotarbiński’s action theory—and thus, behind this book—is the significance of the philosophical investigations of the general conditions of effectiveness, efficiency, and economy of intentional actions. Makowski presents and reinterprets Kotarbiński’s views on these dimensions of our activities and sheds new light on the most important areas of action theory.

This thesis endeavors to map the current levels of automation (LoA) in the creative (design) process of New Media Design by investigating technological automation and the increasing presence of A.I. in new creative support tools, methods, and processes. It also explores how designers manage their skills to stay relevant. Nondesigners can borrow similar skills offered by an automated system or a smart device to reach similar objectives and share their work instantly on new media platforms.

A ustin (pseudonym) is sitting at a literacy station in his second-grade classroom with a timer set for one minute. As he presses the start button on the timer, he reads a grade-level passage as quickly as he can, skipping words he does not know. At the beep of the timer he stops reading and records the number of words read on his reading sheet. Austin repeats this process two more times while reading the same passage. Later, Austin's oral reading fluency is assessed by having him read a different grade-level passage for one minute while a teacher records his miscues. His oral reading fluency rate equals the number of words read correctly in one minute. The goal is to reach the benchmark rate for second grade.

This study investigates the automatization of sentence processing using the coefficient of variation (CV), a measure of intraindividual processing stability . A smaller CV (i.e., standard deviation to reaction time [RT] ratio) and a positive CV-RT correlation are taken to index increased automatization. Hulstijn, were the first to try to validate the use of CV at the sentence level; however, they did not find any evidence for automatization in their CV analyses. Forty Korean English as a second language students (20 intermediate, 20 advanced) and 20 native speakers performed three speeded tasks in English: a semantic classification task, a sentence verification task, and a sentence construction task. The results revealed that, consistent with findings from previous word recognition studies, the CV in the sentence-level tasks decreased as participants' proficiency level increased. Although the CV-RT correlation in the sentence verification task was not always significant, no counterevidence against Segalowitz and Segalowitz' (1993) hypothesis was found. The sentence construction task discriminated better between groups than the sentence verification task. We argue that the CV may be a valid measure of automatization at the sentence level, provided the tasks used target lower-level processes such as word recognition, parsing, and semantic proposition formation.

The unconscious mind tends to disregard negations in its processing of semantic meaning. Therefore, messages containing negated concepts can ironically prime mental representations and evaluations that are opposite to those intended. We hypothesized that the subtle presentation of a negated concept (e.g., “no smoking”) would activate ironic motivational orientations as well. We tested this hypothesis in a public health context. Smokers viewed photographs in which no-smoking signs were either inconspicuously embedded (prime) or edited out (control). Primed smokers showed amplified automatic approach tendencies toward smoking-related stimuli, but not toward smoking-unrelated stimuli. Since passive priming effects generally serve to facilitate forms of action, not inhibit them, anti-smoking and other public health campaigns may ironically increase the very behaviors they seek to reduce.

This is a preliminary case study of the challenges learners face when engaged in listening tasks in L2. I explore this issue in light of Flow Theory (Csikszentmihalyi, 1990; Csikszentmihalyi & Csikszentmihalyi, 1989) and discuss what can be optimal learning experiences in this specific language-learning activity to see if the theory could provide language learners and teachers with fruitful insights into learners’ thoughts and emotions. It is also suggested that extensive listening (EL) might not be taken as a simple application of the idea of extensive reading (ER) to the listening domain. I make use of the interview data of the two successful learners and investigate the legitimacy of the four dimensions in the state of ‘flow’ that Egbert (2003) advocated. The learners, who experienced a voluntary listening class for two semesters, talked about their task engagement. Their comments suggest that these dimensions should be refined to accommodate both analytical and holistic approach...

Modern relationships break down in part because of a mismatch between our psycho-sexual natures and our relationship values, embedded within the context of modernity. If we hold our environment and our values constant, might we make up the difference through direct intervention in our psycho-sexual machinery - the neurochemical enhancement of love? Risks and objections, as well as practical considerations are considered.

In this paper we examine the nature of automatic cognitive processing in anxiety disorders and Major Depressive Disorder (MDD). Rather than viewing automaticity as a unitary construct, we follow a social cognition perspective that argues for four theoretically independent features of automaticity: unconscious (processing of emotional stimuli occurs outside awareness), efficient (processing emotional meaning uses minimal attentional resources), unintentional (no goal is needed to engage in processing emotional meaning), and uncontrollable (limited ability to avoid, alter or terminate processing emotional stimuli). Our review of the literature suggests that most anxiety disorders are characterized by uncontrollable, and likely also unconscious and unintentional, biased processing of threat-relevant information. In contrast, MDD is most clearly typified by uncontrollable, but not unconscious or unintentional, processing of negative information. For the anxiety disorders and for MDD, there is no sufficient evidence to draw firm conclusions about efficiency of processing, though early indications are that neither anxiety disorders nor MDD are characterized by this feature. Clinical and theoretical implications of these findings are discussed and directions for future research are offered. In particular, it is clear that paradigms that more directly delineate the different features of automaticity are required to gain a more comprehensive and systematic understanding of the importance of automatic processing in emotion dysregulation.

Recognizing the specific speech act ) that a speaker performs with an utterance is a fundamental feature of pragmatic competence. Past research has demonstrated that native speakers of English automatically recognize speech acts when they comprehend utterances . The present research examined whether this occurs for participants learning English as a second language. Participants read conversational utterances and then performed a lexical decision task (decide whether a target string of letters is a word). Consistent with past research, native speakers performed this task more quickly when the target string was the speech act associated with the preceding utterance. In contrast, nonnative speakers did not demonstrate this effect, suggesting that speech act activation is not an automatic component of comprehension for people acquiring a second language.

"Whereas traditional psychological interventions have been conceptualized in terms of deliberate readiness for change (Prochaska & DiClemente, 1983), emerging findings from social psychology suggest that regulation of behavior can operate independently of conscious selection and guidance (Bargh & Morsella, 2010). This evidence has come from studies using priming techniques based on activation of relevant mental representations by external environmental stimuli (Bargh & Chartrand, 2000). Research on automatic interpersonal processes has shown that feeling of social warmth (Bargh & Shalev, 2011; Williams & Bargh, 2008a) and the regulation of maladaptive emotions (Williams, Bargh, Nocera, & Gray, 2009), for example, can be induced nonconsciously by physical sensations, visual images or semantic concepts. Interventions based on the procedure of priming could be administered
by multiple providers and communication devises to regulate emotional states, increase adherence to treatment instructions, oractivate mind-sets that facilitate adaptive functioning. Integrating the methodology of priming and clinical intervention could both contribute to treatment delivery and enrich our understanding of change processes. We conclude that the use of supplementary priming-based interventions to facilitate and disseminate psychological change should be encouraged."

In a comprehensive meta-analysis of 167 studies, the authors found that sequential priming tasks were significantly associated with behavioral measures (r = .28) and with explicit attitude measures (r = .20). Priming tasks continued to predict behavior after controlling for the effects of explicit attitudes. These results generalized across a variety of study domains and methodological variations. Within-study moderator analyses revealed that priming tasks have good specificity, only predicting behavior and explicit measures under theoretically expected conditions. Together, these results indicate that sequential priming-one of the earliest methods of investigating implicit social cognition-continues to be a valid tool for the psychological scientist.

The last couple of years have seen a rapid growth of interest (especially amongst cognitive psychologists, cognitive neuroscientists, and developmental researchers) in the study of crossmodal correspondences -the tendency for our brains (not to mention the brains of other species) to preferentially associate certain features or dimensions of stimuli across the senses. By now, robust empirical evidence supports the existence of numerous crossmodal correspondences, affecting people's performance across a wide range of psychological tasks -in everything from the redundant target effect paradigm through to studies of the Implicit Association Test, and from speeded discrimination/classification tasks through to unspeeded spatial localisation and temporal order judgment tasks. However, one question that has yet to receive a satisfactory answer is whether crossmodal correspondences automatically affect people's performance (in all, or at least in a subset of tasks), as opposed to reflecting more of a strategic, or top-down, phenomenon. Here, we review the latest research on the topic of crossmodal correspondences to have addressed this issue. We argue that answering the question will require researchers to be more precise in terms of defining what exactly automaticity entails. Furthermore, one's answer to the automaticity question may also hinge on the answer to a second question: Namely, whether crossmodal correspondences are all 'of a kind', or whether instead there may be several different kinds of crossmodal mapping (e.g., statistical, structural, and semantic). Different answers to the automaticity question may then be revealed depending on the type of correspondence under consideration. We make a number of suggestions for future research that might help to determine just how automatic crossmodal correspondences really are.

Unconscious mental processes (such as the automatic activation of racial stereotypes) can lead to such phenomena as negative pygmalion effects and stereotype threat, both of which directly interfere with black students' academic success, thus widening the racial achievement gap. Because stereotype activation occurs automatically and outside of conscious awareness, there is the disturbing possibility that nothing can be done to fully mitigate its harmful effects. It is proposed, however, on the basis of recent cross-disciplinary research, that by expending deliberate effort along the personal, instructional, and environmental dimensions, conscientious teachers can counteract these effects and help close the achievement gap.

Previous research has shown that extended training in non-stereotypic responding (i.e., negating stereotypes and aYrming counterstereotypes) can reduce automatic stereotype activation. In the present research, we claim that the eVects of non-stereotypic association training on automatic stereotype activation are primarily driven by the aYrmation of counterstereotypes rather than by the negation of stereotypes. In two experiments, participants received extensive training in either (a) negating stereotype-congruent information or (b) aYrming stereotype-incongruent information, and then completed a measure of automatic stereotyping (Experiment 1) or automatic evaluation (Experiment 2). Consistent with our predictions, only training in the aYrmation of counterstereotypes led to a reduction in the activation of stereotypes and negative evaluations. In contrast, extended training in the negation of stereotypes enhanced rather than reduced the activation of stereotypes and negative evaluations. Implications for prejudice and stereotype control are discussed.

The present study investigates the automatization of second language (L2) sentence processing. It compares the extent to which a mere speedup (faster execution) and restructuring (more stable execution) of sentence processing contribute to L2 oral performance. The maze task is used to measure the speed (reaction time, RT) and processing stability (coefficient of variance, CV) of sentence processing. The elicited imitation (EI) task measures L2 oral proficiency (repetition accuracy and accuracy in plural and third person s). These tasks were performed by 110 English-as-a-foreign-language learners with Japanese as their L1. The results show that only RT, not CV, significantly predicts L2 oral proficiency. Even though a subgroup of learners, who previously stayed in an English-speaking country, demonstrated some indications of automatization, RT was a better predictor of L2 oral proficiency than CV, irrespective of immersion experience. These findings suggest that CV has little practical value in predicting L2 oral proficiency.

We review and evaluate a growing literature in social and political psychology on the ubiquity of unconscious thought processes and present a theoretical model, called John Q. Public (JQP), which seeks to explain how citizens form and express their political beliefs, attitudes, and choices. Our most revolutionary claims are that people are generally unable to reliably report their political beliefs, attitudes, and behavioral intentions; that unconscious thought underlies all political deliberation, introducing important systematic biases, but paradoxically also providing the capacity for rational action in the face of severe cognitive limitations; and that conscious deliberation is typically more rationalizing than rational.

Touch is both the first sense to develop and a critical means of information acquisition and environmental manipulation. Physical touch experiences may create an ontological scaffold for the development of intrapersonal and interpersonal conceptual and metaphorical knowledge, as well as a springboard for the application of this knowledge. In six experiments, holding heavy or light clipboards, solving rough or smooth puzzles, and touching hard or soft objects nonconsciously influenced impressions and decisions formed about unrelated people and situations. Among other effects, heavy objects made job candidates appear more important, rough objects made social interactions appear more difficult, and hard objects increased rigidity in negotiations. Basic tactile sensations are thus shown to influence higher social cognitive processing in dimension-specific and metaphor-specific ways.

The objective of this paper is to articulate a distinction between habit and bodily skill as different ways of acting without deliberation. I start by elaborating on a distinction between habit and skill as different kinds of dispositions. Then I argue that this distinction has direct implications for the varieties of automaticity exhibited in habitual and skilful bodily acts. The argument suggests that paying close attention to the metaphysics of agency can help to articulate more precisely questions regarding the varieties of automaticity exhibited in overt action.

Although handwriting is often considered a matter of presentation, a substantial body of international research suggests that the role of handwriting in children’s composing has been neglected. Automaticity in handwriting is now seen as of key importance in composing but this proposition is relatively untested in the UK and the assumption has been made that by Y6, handwriting is a matter of presentation, unrelated to composition processes. This article reports the results of a study into the handwriting speed and orthographic motor integration of 198 Y6 children in relation to their composition and relates it to findings from an earlier paper about 179 Y2 children. The study suggests that handwriting is an important factor in the composition of Y6 children and that a proportion of children suffer from low levels of handwriting automaticity, which may be interfering with their composition.

From our everyday commuting to the gold medalist's world-class performance, skillful actions are characterized by fine-grained, online agentive control. What is the proper explanation of such control? There are two traditional candidates: intellectualism explains skillful agentive control by reference to the agent's propositional mental states; anti-intellectualism holds that propositional mental states or reflective processes are unnecessary, since skillful action is fully accounted for by automatic coping processes. I examine the evidence for three psychological phenomena recently held to support anti-intellectualism (choking under pressure, expertise-induced amnesia, and expert confabulation), and argue that it supports neither traditional candidate, but an intermediate 'attention-control account', according to which the top-down, intention-directed control of attention is a necessary component of skillful action. Only this account recognizes both the role of automatic control in skilled action, and the need for higher-order cognition to thread automatic processes together into a unified skillful performance. This applies to bodily skillful action in general, from the world-class performance of experts to mundane, habitual action. The attention-control account stresses that, for intentions to play their role as top-down modulators of attention, agents must sustain the intention's activation. Hence the need for reflecting throughout performance.

People make social inferences without intentions, awareness, or effort, i.e., spontaneously. We review recent findings on spontaneous social inferences (especially traits, goals, and causes) and closely related phenomena. We then describe current thinking on some of the most relevant processes, implicit knowledge, and theories. These include automatic and controlled processes and their interplay; embodied cognition, including mimicry; and associative versus rule-based processes. Implicit knowledge includes adult folk theories, conditions of personhood, self-knowledge to simulate others, and cultural and social class differences. Implicit theories concern Bayesian networks, recent attribution research, and questions about the utility of the disposition-situation dichotomy. Developmental research provides new insights. Spontaneous social inferences include a growing array of phenomena, but they have been insufficiently linked to other phenomena and theories. We hope the links suggested in this review begin to remedy this. 329 Annu. Rev. Psychol. 2008.59:329-360. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by NEW YORK UNIVERSITY -BOBST LIBRARY on 12/29/07. For personal use only.

In the philosophical literature, self-deception is mainly approached through the analysis of paradoxes. Yet, it is agreed that self-deception is motivated by protection from distress. In this paper, we argue, with the help of findings from cognitive neuroscience and psychology, that self-deception is a type of affective coping. First, we criticize the main solutions to the paradoxes of self-deception. We then present a new approach to self-deception. Self-deception, we argue, involves three appraisals of the distressing evidence: (a) appraisal of the strength of evidence as uncertain, (b) low coping potential and (c) negative anticipation along the lines of Damasio's somatic marker hypothesis. At the same time, desire impacts the treatment of flattering evidence via dopa-mine. Our main proposal is that self-deception involves emotional mechanisms provoking a preference for immediate reward despite possible long-term negative repercussions. In the last part, we use this emotional model to revisit the philosophical paradoxes.

We take a social neuroscience approach to self and social categorisation in which the current self-categorisation(s) is constructed from relatively stable identity representations stored in memory (such as the significance of one's social identity) through iterative and interactive perceptual and evaluative processing. This approach describes these processes across multiple levels of analysis, linking the effects of self-categorisation and social identity on perception and evaluation to brain function. We review several studies showing that self-categorisation with an arbitrary group can override the effects of more visually salient, cross-cutting social categories on social perception and evaluation. The top-down influence of self-categorisation represents a powerful antecedent-focused strategy for suppressing racial bias without many of the limitations of a more response-focused strategy. Finally we discuss the implications of this approach for our understanding of social perception and evaluation and the neural substrates of these processes.