AUTOMACITY

Tania Akram BS (hons)-psychology

DEFINITION

“It is the ability to do things without occupying the mind with the low-level details required, allowing it to become an automatic response pattern or habit

EXAMPLES

Walking, speaking, bicycle riding, driving, or playing an instrument

TYPES OF PROCESSING

There are two types of processing1. Controlled processing2. Automatic processing

Controlled processing

Controlled processing requires some conscious control to complete itself.

Example: Driving a car, using a computer

Automatic processing

Automatic processes complete themselves without conscious control by subject.

Example Brushing,walking,eating

Automatic processing

Different tasks require different amount of mental efforts to perform them.

Some become so well practiced and routine that they require very minimal mental capacity.

Cognitive psychologists use the term “automatic processing” for such skills.

Automatic and Practice

As much we practiced a task, mental capacity require to perform it minimized.

The more a process practiced the less attention it requires.

Automaticity and Our Cognitive Process:

Shriffrin & Schneider argue that it is best to think of automaticity as a matter of degree rather than a distinct category. We can describe the way through which practice affects attentional limitations through a study conducted by Underwood (1974) on a psychologist named Moray. Who has spent many years studying shadowing (split attention studies).

Moray can report most of the unattended channels because for him shadowing has become automatic.

Automaticity or automatic processing develops from the slower more resource-limited controlled processing.

Example

Crawl before you walk, and walk before you run – slow and controlled leads to fast and automatic.

When is a skill automatic?

According to posner and Snyder (1975) a skill is automatic if it:

1. Occurs without intention.2. Does not give rise to conscious

awareness.3. Does not interfere with other mental

activities.

Pros and cons of automaticity

Pros:1. It allows us to perform routine activities

without much concentration or mental effort

2. It doesn’t require much attention.3. It completes themselves without

conscious control by the subject

Cons:1. We may make silly mistakes.2. We may fall to remember what we did.3. We are not able to show others how we

do a task

EXPERIMENTS:

Shriffrin & Dumais (1982) and Shriffrin & Schneider (1977) performed a series of experiments contrasting controlled VS. Automatic processing.

Shriffrin & Dumais’s experiment

In their experiments, subjects were presented with visual arrays. The subjects were given a target letter or number and instructed to scan a series of visual displays for the target.

Features of experiments

Frame sizeCategories of conditionsRelationship between target and other

items of frame.

Frame size

Each frame has one, two or four characters on it. This factor is referred to as frame size.

G T H I L5 characters

G T H I J K L 1 2 I9 characters

Categories of conditions

There are two types of conditions:1.Same category condition2.Different category condition

Same category condition

In it the target is a letter as well as all the characters on the frame and you have to recognize one letter out of them.

Example

G K L M N R S Y Z K N

Different category condition

In it the target is a number surrounded by letters on the frame.

Example

G K 3 L M N R 5 S Y Z K N

If the target appears on the frame, subject responds “Yes”, if it doesn’t appear on the frame the subject responds “No”.

RESULTS

In the different category condition:Reaction time was 80 milliseconds and

accuracy was 95%No effect of frame size

In the same category condition:Reaction time was 400 milliseconds and

accuracy was 95%.Accuracy and RT distorted as frame size

increased.

Shiffrin and Schneider’s experiment

Thy ran another experiment to check whether practice can make a difficult task easy one.

In this experiment the target always came from one set of letters.

These target letters were B C D F G H J K L and the distracters were Q R S T V W X Y Z.

After 2100 trails subjects were at the same level of accuracy and reaction time as the different condition in the previous experiment.

Thus subject needs 2100 trails of practice to become as much responsive as in different category condition.

Results

Reaction time =80 ms Accuracy =95% Results shows that practice can make a

difficult task an easy one.

Criteria for automaticity

Hasher and Zacks (1979) proposed five criteria to distinguish between automatic and control processes.

They also made predictions based on these five criteria

These five criteria are following:1. Intentional vs. Incidental learning:2. Effect of instruction and practice:3. Task interference4. Depression or high arousal5. Developmental trends

Intentional vs. Incidental learning

Intentional learning:

“Intentional learning occurs when we deliberately try to learn something”.

Example

Learning of how to ride a bicycle

How to make a presentation

Incidental learning

“It occurs when we are not deliberately trying to learn something”.

Example

Parents say their children do not lie but parents lie themselves. Children learn their actions rather saying.

Incidental learning is as effective as intentional learning for automatic processes but is less effective for effortful learning.

Because in incidental learning we are not consciously learn which is a necessary thing in effortful learning.

Effect of instruction and practice

Both practice and instruction effect effortful processes as both help in learning well.

But instructions on how to perform a task and practice don’t effect automatic processes because they are already learned so well.

Example

Expert cricketer come in ground and coach says when you see ball hit it. It is not necessary to say because expert cricketer already knows what he has to do.

Task interference

Automatic processes shouldn’t interfere with each other because they require little or no capacity.

Effortful processes require considerable capacity and should interfere with each other when they exceed the amount of available capacity.

Depression or high arousal

Emotional states such as depression or high emotional arousal can reduce the effectiveness of effortful processes.

if we are in sad mood and someone give us a difficult and demanding task we can’t concentrate on that task and can’t learn well.

Example

When we are in sad mood we are not able to learn and pay attention in class room.

Automatic processes aren’t affected by emotional states.

ExampleIf we have to brush our teeth we can do it

even if we are in sad mood.

Developmental trends

Automatic processes show little change with age. Once a task is practiced then the age doesn’t matter. They (most of automatic processes) acquired early in

life and do not decline in old age.

Effortful processes show developmental changes. They are not performed as well by young children or the elderly.

There are many things that old people can’t perform. Because these Tasks demand some capacity level or concentration.

Example

An old man can’t learn well and easily to drive a car as a young person can.

Conclusion

The basic difference between automatic and effortful processes, according to these five criteria are:

Intentional vs. Incidental learning

Automatic :no difference

Effortful : intentional is better

Effect of instruction and practice

Automatic : no effects

Effortful : Improve performance

Task interference

Automatic : no interference

Effortful : interference

Depression or high arousal

Automatic : No effects

Effortful : poor performance

Developmental trends

Automatic: NONE

Effortful : Poor Performance