Automaticity a.k.a. 'Autopilot'

Most people who routinely drive to and from their workplace will have experienced 'Highway hypnosis' (ref.) at some stage. In other words, arriving at their destination with little or no recollection of the drive.

Leading to the idea that either :

1) their memory system was disrupted for some reason, or

2) their 'unconscious' mind was somehow doing the driving.

Highway hypnosis' is an example of 'Automaticity' - i.e. the ability to carry-out complex actions without occupying the conscious mind with low-level details, and (somehow) allowing an automatic response strategy instead.

Research into automaticity only began in the 1980s. And, although many examples have been experimentally studied since then (with varying conclusions) there still remains the question of how it's possible that people can carry out relatively complex tasks without paying (much) conscious attention.

Current opinion is predominantly that many tasks are realised using a combination of conscious and unconscious brainpower - though how the 'unconscious' part might contribute is largely unknown.

For a comprehensive (2014) review of progress in automaticity studies see : Prof. John Bargh's The Four Horsemen of Automaticity: Awareness, lntention, Efficiency, and Control in Social Cognition (archived)

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Also see : Unconscious thought theoryplugin-autotooltip__plain plugin-autotooltip_bigUnconscious thought theory

Unconscious Thought Theory (UTT) refers to the idea that that people may be able to 'work through' complex problems without necessarily paying conscious attention.

Many will have had the experience of waking in the morning with a solution to a problem that had previously proved difficult or impossible to resolve using conscious thought. A similar phenomenon is when someone has a 'Eureka' moment when