Conscious Thought and Rational Norms.

自觉思想和理性规范。

• 批准号: 0820553
• 负责人: Craig McKenzie
• 金额: $ 37.45万
• 依托单位: University of California-San Diego
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-10-01 至 2013-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0820553&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Conscious; Thought; Rational; Norms.

Automatic, unconscious processes are frequently assumed to be responsible for the systematic patterns of apparently irrational behavior documented by cognitive psychologists. However, some recent experiments suggest that deliberate conscious thought actually lead to poorer decisions in complex choice situations. The purpose of this research is to understand what conditions result in automatic / deliberative decision making resulting in superior performance and the sources of these performance advantages.Two sets of experiments will investigate these questions from two opposite directions. Several studies will examine recent experimental evidence for the efficacy of "unconscious thought" processes. These experiments ask: (1) is the apparent unconscious thought advantage found in these recent experiments normatively and psychologically real? And, if so, (2) what are the cognitive mechanisms underlying this unconscious thought advantage; and (3) does this advantage extend to choice situations involving inter-temporal trade-offs and moral dimensions?A second set of experiments starts with biases observed in conscious judgment, and asks whether similar biases in information processing influence the automatic processes engaged by subliminal images. When participants are exposed to masked images, presented so briefly that they fail to reach conscious awareness, these images nonetheless can "prime" - i.e., facilitate or interfere with - responses to subsequent clearly visible images. By modifying the content of the subliminal images and the structure of the task, it is possible to ask whether factors that inappropriately bias explicit conscious judgments have similar effects on implicit unconscious priming from subliminal images.This research promises to deepen our understanding of the functions of consciousness, the mechanisms of intuition, and the general relationship between consciousness and rationality. It should help us to better understand the conditions under which, and the mechanisms by which, conscious and unconscious thought processes lead to improved decisions.

自动的、无意识的过程经常被认为是认知心理学家所记录的明显非理性行为的系统模式的原因。然而，最近的一些实验表明，在复杂的选择情况下，深思熟虑的有意识的思考实际上会导致更糟糕的决定。本研究的目的是了解哪些条件会导致自动/审慎决策产生卓越绩效，以及这些绩效优势的来源。两组实验将从两个相反的方向来研究这些问题。几项研究将检验最近关于“无意识思维”过程功效的实验证据。这些实验问：(1)在这些最近的实验中发现的明显的无意识思维优势在规范和心理上是真实的吗？如果是，(2)这种无意识思维优势背后的认知机制是什么；(3)这种优势是否延伸到涉及跨时间权衡和道德维度的选择情境？第二组实验从有意识判断中观察到的偏见开始，并询问信息处理中的类似偏见是否会影响潜意识图像所参与的自动过程。当参与者接触到蒙面图像时，这些图像呈现得如此短暂以至于他们无法达到有意识的意识，尽管如此，这些图像仍然可以“启动”——即促进或干扰——对随后清晰可见的图像的反应。通过修改阈下图像的内容和任务的结构，我们可以问，不适当地偏向外显意识判断的因素是否对阈下图像的内隐无意识启动有类似的影响。这项研究有望加深我们对意识功能、直觉机制以及意识与理性之间一般关系的理解。它应该有助于我们更好地理解有意识和无意识思维过程导致改进决策的条件和机制。