Automaticity

This article is about automaticity of learning. For ability of cardiac muscles to depolarize spontaneously, see Cardiac muscle automaticity.

Automaticity /ˌɔːtəməˈtɪsᵻti/ 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. It is usually the result of learning, repetition, and practice.

Examples of automaticity are common activities such as walking, speaking, bicycle-riding, assembly-line work, and driving a car (the last of these sometimes being termed "highway hypnosis"). After an activity is sufficiently practiced, it is possible to focus the mind on other activities or thoughts while undertaking an automatized activity (for example, holding a conversation or planning a speech while driving a car).

Characteristics of automaticity

John Bargh (1994), based on over a decade of research, suggested that four characteristics usually accompany automatic behavior:[1]

Awareness
A person may be unaware of the mental process that is occurring.
Intentionality
A person may not be involved with the initiation of a mental process.
Efficiency
Automatic mental processes tend to have a low cognitive load, requiring relatively low mental resources.
Controllability
A person may not have the ability to stop or alter a process after initiation.

Bargh states that these are simply common characteristics; not all are needed for a process to be considered automatic. For instance, stereotype activation has been described as an automatic process: it is unintentional and efficient, requiring little effort.[2] However stereotype activation is accompanied by above chance awareness[3] and if conflicting processing goals are available it becomes controlled.[4] Therefore stereotype activation only satisfies two of Barge's criteria, but is still considered to be an example of automatic processing.

Automaticity in reading

LaBerge and Samuels (1974) helped explain how reading fluency develops.[5] Automaticity refers to knowing how to perform some arbitrary task at a competent level without requiring conscious effort—i.e. it is a form of unconscious competence.

Moreover, if the student is automatic or is "a skilled reader, multiple tasks are being performed at the same time, such as decoding the words, comprehending the information, relating the information to prior knowledge of the subject matter, making inferences, and evaluating the information's usefulness to a report he or she is writing" (Samuels). It is essential to understand automaticity and how it is achieved to better a student's performance. This is important for teachers because automaticity should be focused on in early years to ensure higher level reading skills in adolescence.

Disrupting automaticity

Automaticity can be disrupted by explicit attention when the devotion of conscious attention to the pattern alters the content or timing of that pattern itself. This phenomenon is especially pronounced in situations that feature high upside and/or downside risk and impose the associated psychological stress on one's conscious mind; one's performance in these "clutch" situations may either a) be unimpaired or even enhanced ("flow") or b) deteriorate ("choke").

This effect has been named the "centipede effect" after the fable of the "Centipede's dilemma", where a toad immobilises a centipede simply by asking it how it walks. The centipede's normally unconscious locomotion was interrupted by conscious reflection on it. The psychologist George Humphrey referred to this parable in his 1923 The story of man's mind:[6] "No man skilled at a trade needs to put his constant attention on the routine work," he wrote. "If he does, the job is apt to be spoiled."

Using automaticity to influence

In Influence, Robert Cialdini's book about social psychology and influence tactics, Cialdini explains how common automatic response patterns are in human behavior, and how easily they can be triggered, even with erroneous cues.[7] He describes an experiment conducted by social psychologists Langer, Chanowitz, and Blank which illustrates how compliant people will be with a request if they hear words that sound like they are being given a reason, even if no actual reason is provided. The experimenters approached people standing in line to use a photocopier with one of three requests:

Small
request		 Sound reason 94% (15 out of 16) 94
 
No reason 60% (9 out of 15) 60
 
Placebic reason 93% (14 out of 15) 93
 
Large
request		 Sound reason 42% (10 out of 24) 42
 
No reason 24% (6 out of 25) 24
 
Placebic reason 24% (6 out of 25) 24
 

When given the request plus a reason, 94% of people asked complied with the request. When given the request without a reason, only 60% complied. But when given the request with what sounds like a reason but isn't, compliance jumped back to 93%. Langer, Chanowitz, and Blank are convinced that most human behavior falls into automatic response patterns.[8][9]

However, when the request was made larger (20 pages instead of 5), subjects expected a sound reason before complying, as illustrated in the table.[10]

See also

References

  1. ↑ John A Bargh. "The Four Horsemen of Automaticity: Awareness, lntention, Efficiency, and Control in Social Cognition" (PDF). New York University. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 22, 2014. Retrieved 2014-02-16. (NOTE: Missing pages 24-25.)
  2. ↑ Bargh, John; Chen, Mark; Burrows, Lara (1996). "Automaticity of Social Behavior: Direct Effects of Trait Construct and Stereotype Activation on Action" (PDF). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (American Psychological Association, Inc) 71 (2): 230–244. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.71.2.230. PMID 8765481. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
  3. ↑ Doyen, Stephanie; Klein, Oliver; Pichon, Cora-Lise; Cleeremans, Axel (2012). "Behavioral priming: it's all in the mind, but whose mind?". PLoS ONE 7 (1): e29081. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0029081. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
  4. ↑ Blair, Irene; Mahzarin, Banaji (1996). "Automatic and controlled processes in stereotype priming" (PDF). Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (American Psychological Association, Inc.) 70 (6): 1142–1163. doi:10.1037/0022-3514.70.6.1142. Retrieved February 16, 2014.
  5. ↑ Michael Pressley. "Comprehension Instruction: What Works". ReadingRockets. Retrieved 2008-03-15.
  6. ↑ Humphrey, George (1923). The story of man's mind. Boston: Small, Maynard and company. p. 109.
  7. ↑ Cialdini, R.B. (2001). Influence: Science and practice (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. Chapter 1.
  8. ↑ Cialdini, R.B. (2001). Influence: Science and practice (4th ed.). Boston: Allyn & Bacon. p. 4
  9. ↑ Langer, E.J., (1989). Minding matters. In L. Berkowitz (Ed.), Advances in experimental social psychology (Vol. 22). New York, Academic Press.
  10. ↑ Langer, Blank and Chanowitz, The Mindlessness of Ostensibly Thoughtful Action: The Role of "Placebic" Information in Interpersonal Interaction

Sources

External links

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