Attention and Preattention in an Instance Theory of Automatization

自动性是日常精神生活中的一种重要现象。许多日常活动都是毫不费力地快速完成的，简言之，就是不假思索地自动完成。在过去的十年里，心理学家们对其经验特征了解了很多，但从理论上对自动性的理解却很少。这项研究提出了一种新的自动性理论，测试了它的假设，并将它的预测与以前的方法进行了比较。该理论假设，自动处理是基于直接访问的单步记忆提取，就像当2+2的总和出现在脑海中时，或者当我们在一天结束时进入汽车时，脑海中浮现出回家的路线。练习很重要，因为它增强了记忆，使它更可靠，因此，在一项经过充分练习的任务中的表现完全取决于记忆的提取。关于加强记忆的假设使理论能够预测学习曲线的形式，并降低与实践的可验证性，这是所有理论必须预测的基本效果。这项研究考察了注意力在编码到记忆中和从记忆中提取中的作用。该理论假设，任何被关注的东西都会被编码到记忆中，这意味着其他理论没有预测到的某些语境效应。具体地说，它意味着记忆将包含一个人的注意力历史与刺激的痕迹，将这个人在对刺激做出反应时注意到的不同事情联系起来。根据任务的注意力要求，这种轨迹会有所不同。可以将注意力直接集中在刺激上的任务比人必须寻找刺激的任务具有更弱的背景效应，将注意力分散在几个可能的刺激上。以前的方法预测，无论注意的条件如何，都不会受到环境的影响。该理论假设，对刺激的关注会使过去与之相关的任何东西都被找回。这是自动加工速度快、不费力的基础。此外，它还意味着，只有在人注意到刺激之后，才能获得关于刺激的知识。因此，将注意力引向熟悉的刺激应该“开启”自动处理，而将注意力从刺激转移开则应该“关闭”。这与以前的方法不同，以前的方法假设自动处理在注意力集中在刺激之前就可以使用。

Automaticity is an important phenomenon in everyday mental life. Many routine activities are performed quickly and effortlessly with little thought, in short, automatically. Over the last decade, psychologists have learned a lot about its empirical characteristics, but automaticity is poorly understood theoretically. This research addresses a new theory of automaticity, testing its assumptions and comparing its predictions against previous approaches. The theory assumes that automatic processing is based on direct-access, single-step memory retrieval, as when 4 pops into mind as the sum of 2+2 or the route home comes to mind as we enter our cars at the end of the day. Practice is important because it strengthens memory and makes it more reliable, so that performance on a well-practiced task can depend entirely on memory retrieval. The assumptions about strengthening memory allow the theory to predict the form of the learning curve and the reduction of verifiability with practice, which are basic effects that all theories must predict. The research examines the role of attention in encoding into memory and retrieval from memory. The theory assumes that whatever is attended will be encoded into memory, which implies certain context effects not predicted by other theories. Specifically, it implies that memory will contain a trace of the person's attentional history with a stimulus, associating the different things the person attended to in responding to the stimulus. That trace will be different depending on the attentional requirements of the task. Tasks in which attention can be focused directly on the stimulus will have weaker context effects than tasks in which the person must search for the stimulus, dividing attention among several possible stimuli. Previous approaches predict no effect of context regardless of the conditions of attention. The theory assumes that attention to a stimulus causes whatever was associated with it in the past to be retrieved. This is the basis of the speed and effortlessness of automatic processing. In addition, it implies that knowledge about the stimulus is available only after the person attends to it. Thus, directing attention toward a familiar stimulus should "turn on" automatic processing and directing attention away from it should "turn it off." This contrasts with previous approaches, which assume that automatic processing becomes available prior to attention, before attention is focused on the stimulus.