Automaticity is an important phenomenon in everyday mental
life. Most of us recognize that we perform routine activities
quickly and effortlessly, with little thought and conscious
awareness in short, automatically (James, 1890). As a result,
we often perform those activities on "automatic pilot" and
turn our minds to other things. For example, we can drive
to dinner while conversing in depth with a visiting scholar,
or we can make coffee while planning dessert. However, these
benefits may be offset by costs. The automatic pilot can lead
us astray, causing errors and sometimes catastrophes (Reason
& Myceilska, 1982). If the conversation is deep enough, we
may find ourselves and the scholar arriving at the office
rather than the restaurant, or we may discover that we aren't
sure whether we put two or three scoops of coffee into the
pot.
Automaticity is also an important phenomenon in skill acquisition
(e.g., Bryan & Harter, 1899). Skills are thought to consist
largely of collections of automatic processes and procedures
(e.g., Chase & Simon, 1973; Logan, 1985b). For example, skilled
typewriting involves automatic recognition of words, translation
of words into keystrokes, and execution of keystrokes (Salthouse,
1986). Moreover, the rate of automatization is thought to
place important limits on the rate of skill acquisi tion:
LaBerge and Samuels (1974) claimed that beginning readers
may not be able to learn to read for meaning until they have
learned to identify words and letters automatically.
Over the last decade, considerable progress has been made
in understanding the nature of automaticity and the conditions
under which it may be acquired (for reviews, see Kahneman
& Treisman, 1984; LaBerge, 1981; Logan, 1985b; Schneider,
Dumais, & Shiffrin, 1984). There is evidence that automatic
processing differs qualitatively from nonautomatic processing
in several respects: Automatic processing is fast (Neely,
1977; Posner & Snyder, 1975), effortless (Logan, 1978, 1979;
Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977), autonomous (Logan, 1980; Posner
& Snyder, 1975; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977; Zbrodoff& Logan,
1986), stereotypic (McLeod, McLaughlin, & NimmoSmith, 1985;
NavehBenjamin & Jonides, 1984), and unavailable to conscious
awareness (Carr, McCauley, Sperber, & Parmalee, 1982; Marcel,
1983). There is also evidence that automaticity is acquired
only in consistent task environments, as when stimuli are
mapped consistently onto the same responses throughout practice.
Most of the properties of automaticity develop through practice
in such environments (Logan, 1978, 1979; Schneider & Fisk,
1982; Schneider & Shiffrin, 1977; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977).
Automaticity is commonly viewed as a special topic in the
study of attention. The modal view links automaticity with
a singlecapacity model of attention, such as Kahneman's (1973).
It considers automatic processing to occur without attention
(e.g., Hasher & Zacks, 1979; Logan, 1979, 1980; Posner & Snyder,
1975; Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977), and it interprets the acquisition
of automaticity as the gradual withdrawal of attention (e.g.,
LaBerge & Samuels, 1974; Logan, 1978; Shiffrin & Schneider,
1977). The modal view has considerable power, accounting for
most of tile properties of automaticity: Automatic processing
is fast and effortless because it is not subject to attentional
limitations. It is autonomous, obligatory, or uncontrollable
because attentional control is exerted by allocating capacity;
a process that does not require capacity cannot be controlled
by allocating capacity. Finally, it is unavailable to consciousness
because attention is the mechanism of consciousness and only
those things that are attended are available to consciousness
(e.g., Posner & Snyder, 1975).