Unconscious thought theory

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Unconscious mind theory ( UTT ) argues that the unconscious mind is capable of performing tasks beyond one's consciousness, and that the subconscious mind (UT) is better at completing tasks complex, in which many variables are considered, rather than the conscious mind (CT), but are defeated by the conscious mind in tasks with fewer variables. This was proposed by Ap Dijksterhuis and Loran Nordgren in 2006.

This theory is based primarily on the findings of comparing subjects presented with complex decisions (eg which of the few apartments are the best?), And allows (1). very little time, (2). sufficient time, or (3), sufficient time but disrupted and thus prevented from devoting the conscious resource's attention to it. It is said that subjects who can not devote the conscious process to the task surpass those who can spend time negotiating and those who must respond immediately. Dijksterhuis and Nordgren interpret this finding as a strong support for UT's ideas that are superior to CT, and use them in part to justify the six principles that differentiate UT from CT.

This position is at odds with most of the research on subconscious processing done over the last 40 years, which has uncovered the unconscious process to be characterized by simple responses, and unable to perform complex operations. Unconscious Thought Theory has come under severe criticism from researchers who are unable to mimic the original effect

"When making unimportant decisions, I always find it advantageous to consider all the pros and cons, but in the vital matters... the decision must come from the unconscious, from somewhere within ourselves."

Video Unconscious thought theory

Description

The unconscious mind theory goes against the last 30 years of major research on unconscious cognition (see for review). Many attributes of the subconscious mind according to UTT are taken from research by George Miller and Guy Claxton on cognitive and social psychology, as well as from people's psychology; together it represents a strong unconscious, possessing some abilities far beyond conscious thought. UTT in this case reminiscent of some classical views of the unconscious that emerged as early as the twentieth century. Both UTT and Freudian psychoanalytic theories argue that complex operations are performed by the unconscious, but where Freud's theory suggests that unconscious represses dangerous memories to protect one's ego, UTT's UT version performs rational operations to solve unsolved cognitive or affective tasks. The subliminal deviation theory Helmholtz also shares UTT's view that unconscious reasoning mediates our interpretation of the world, but UTT differs from the unconscious inference by its assertion that the subconscious is a time-consuming process; The well-known use of Helmholtz's perception as an example of unconscious inference shows that the subconscious mind, for him, operates much faster. Perhaps UTT's most striking contrast to the contemporary understanding of the unconscious is that between its main claims and the study of implicit perceptions. Researchers such as Anthony Greenwald have used subliminal semantic activation tasks to evaluate the subconscious mind by presenting words very quickly to prevent them from entering the conscious mind. Unconscious unconsciousness to process more than one word at a time has led these researchers to conclude that the subconscious mind is not simple. But UTT argues that the subconscious mind is very sophisticated, enjoying benefits such as freedom from bias and the ability to integrate different pieces of information more efficiently than the conscious mind.

Maps Unconscious thought theory

The conscious and unconscious mind

Definition of CT

Dijksterhuis defines the conscious mind as a conscious thought process and can be introspected. For example, when someone asks you, "Why do you do that," and you can report the thoughts you used to give your answer, then the thought is conscious.

CT attribute

Done on task or object in someone's attention; low capacity; rely on a scheme to efficiently process information; bad in considering the importance of decision factors; process information using strict rules.

Definition of UT

Unconscious mind, for Dijksterhuis, is just the opposite of the conscious mind because it involves thinking that you can not introspect. This may happen when you write and frustrate for not having the right words, but then it just pops into your head, and you do not know what step you take to take it; this is called incubation.

UT attribute

Done on a task or object outside of a person's attention; high capacity; not dependent on a scheme or heuristic (thanks to its high capacity) and is therefore not susceptible to bias; both on the weighting attribute of the decision object; processing information through association; depending on the target.

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Consideration-without-attention

The conscious mind is thought to lead to a good choice. However, because of its low capacity to process many factors, it actually leads to worse choices on more complex issues. On the other hand, the unconscious mind, the unattended consideration, is often considered to lead to bad choices. However, with the subconscious mind, the quality of choice does not deteriorate with increasing complexity, but will remain the same. Therefore, the subconscious mind actually leads to better choices when faced with complex problems. For example, when buying a car based on some characteristics, individuals who use the conscious mind will most likely choose the most desirable car. But when trying to choose a car based on various aspects, those who use unconscious decisions are more likely to choose the best car, as well as have post-selection satisfaction. This is the basis for the deliberation-without-attention hypothesis: that the quality of choice depends on the relationship between the mode of thought (conscious or unconscious) and the complexity of choice.

Ap Dijksterhuis researchers, Maarten W. Bos, Loran F. Nordgren, and Rick B. van Baaren tested this hypothesis in a series of studies that measured preferred quality and post-optional satisfaction after participants used conscious and unconscious considerations. Research supports the not-caring consideration effect: conscious thinkers are better able to make normatively more desirable choices between simple products, but unconscious thinkers are better able to choose between complex products. Furthermore, after making complex decisions, conscious thinkers tend to be less satisfied with their choices than unconscious thinkers.

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The origins of UTT

Given the difference in capacity between CT and UT, Dijksterhuis uses a series of five experiments to test two hypotheses about the decision-making process of the subconscious mind. The first hypothesis is that in complex decision-making, being able to use UT will result in a better decision than when a person makes a decision immediately and can not use UT; the second is that when making complicated decisions, only UT users will outperform the combination of UT and CT users.

The standard UTT experimental paradigm is as follows:

1. The subject is asked to perform complex tasks of "forming an impression" of four decision objects (eg, apartment, prospective roommate, or car - things to consider for many variables).
2. The subject is presented with a set of positive or negative negative descriptive attributes for each object (For example, two positive attributes are: Apartment 2 in the city center and, Apartment 3 is large enough). One object rationally is the "best" option based on majority ownership of a positive attribute (75%), while two of the other three are "mediocre" and the last "bad" option (having only 50% or 25% positive attributes, each).
3. Subjects are placed into one of three conditions and are then told that they must evaluate or decide between decision objects. Distraction conditions require subjects to focus on complex tasks such as solving anagrams, preventing the conscious mind but allowing the subconscious mind. A condition Deliberation requires subjects to think about their evaluation of objects, enabling conscious and unconscious thinking. The third control condition requires the subject to immediately report the answer, only allowing for the conscious and subconscious mind to be minimal.
4. Which objects are selected most by each group (ie, normative objects good, okay, or poor) express the difference in effectiveness of decision making between the subconscious mind (Distraction), unconscious and conscious minds together (Deliberation) , and minimal thinking (Control).

Using this method, Dijksterhuis finds that subjects in Distraction conditions make better choices than the Deliberation or Control conditions, and conclude that the subconscious mind itself is superior to the conscious mind for making complex decisions. He then published the theory of the unconscious mind with Loran Nordgren.

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From UTT: six principles that differentiate UT from CT

The principle of unconscious thought

The Unconscious Thought Principle affirms the existence and nature of two types of thought: conscious and unconscious. The conscious mind is defined as "the relevant or relevant process of cognitive or affective thinking-the task that occurs when the object or task is the focus of one's conscious attention," while the unconscious mind occurs only when the object or task is out of mind.

Capacity principle

According to cognitive psychologist George Miller, one can not store more than seven items, plus or minus two, in conscious working memory; the subconscious mind does not have this restriction. The UTT Capacity Principle assumes these seven plus-or-minus-two rules are true.

The principle of bottom-up versus top-down

Given its low capacity, the conscious mind must use a top-down "processing" style that uses shortcuts or schemes to work efficiently. Because of its infinite capacity, the subconscious mind instead uses a "bottom-up" processing style that avoids schemes, integrates information efficiently and avoids the biases that schemes may bring to the conscious mind.

The weighting principle

Research by Timothy Wilson and Jonathan Schooler shows how consideration between choice objects and introspection in a person's reasoning process results in a greater satisfaction of choice than when one does not introspect. Combining these findings with Dijksterhuis' that people also seem to make better decisions when disturbed than when negotiating, Dijksterhuis and Nordgren put forward the Weighting Principle: that the subconscious mind is better than the conscious mind that precisely weighs the relative importance of the attributes of the chosen object.

The rule principle

According to Guy Claxton, the conscious mind uses rule-based thought, following formal rules like traditional logic, whereas the subconscious mind uses associations that are inherent or learned through experience, as in classical conditioning. In accordance with Claxton, The Rule Principle states that the conscious mind follows strict and precise rules, whereas the subconscious mind is engaged in an associative process. It is important to note that the subconscious mind can adjust to the rules even if they do not follow them. That is, although the process used to produce the output unconsciously differs from the process used in the conscious mind, the output of the subconscious mind may be the same or similar to the conscious mind.

Convergence principle

When asked about the secrets behind their brilliant work, Nobel Prize winners and famous artists often cite incubation, saying that only understanding the problem they want to solve and not thinking about it somehow gets the solution. In addition to these introspective reports, the Convergence Principles cite experiments that show the benefits of unconscious thought in creativity to show that the conscious mind is focused and "convergent," using only information that is directly relevant to the purpose or task, while the subconscious mind is more "different, "carries information that has a less obvious relationship to the purpose or task at hand. In this way, the long period of unconscious thought precipitates the ingenuity in which the conscious mind is stagnant.

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Criticisms against UTT

UTT has been challenged both on its existence and, if any, on generalizability.

UTT's initial meta-analysis, conducted by Acker, found no support for claims that UT is superior to CT in complex decision-making.

In the largest analysis to date, examining all studies to date and contributing to large-scale replication studies (N = 399), Nieuwenstein et al. (2015) states that "large-scale replication studies do not produce evidence for UTA, and meta-analysis suggests that previous UTA ​​reports were limited to less-powerful studies using relatively small sample sizes." They concluded that

"There is no reliable support for the claim that momentary mind-shifting leads to better decision-making than the period of consideration."

Methodologically, Srinivasan et al. (2013) argue that the attention processing periods that occur during the "unconscious" period of thought may be critical to decision making.

Another challenge for UTT argues that it can not combine relevant cognitive and social psychological knowledge, that the advice given by Dijksterhuis to use UT for complex decisions is inappropriate in a particular choice environment, and offers an alternative interpretation of Dijksterhuis' findings and his colleagues.

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Summary

It is known that the subconscious mind can interpret single words or images, and that thinking about simple problems for too long can be detrimental. It remains unclear in what situations, if anything, it is best to delegate decisions to a person's unconscious by distracting them (see Payne, Waroquier and Srinivasan & Mukherjee), and to what extent logical, rule-based thought processes can occur outside awareness. More fundamentally, it is still not known what exactly happens neurologically when the subconscious occurs, a more thorough understanding that might inform those who try to prescribe an unconscious or conscious mind. (Antonio Damasio's latest book on reasoning neurology, Descartes Error: Emotions, Reasons, and the Human Brain , while not a discussion of consciousness, argues for an evolving interaction that occurs in the normal state of the brain between emotions - a process which is not realized, is different from the conscious experience of feeling - and conscious reasoning.)

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See also

• Unconscious cognition

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References

src: www.iep.utm.edu

External links

• Ap Dijksterhuis' Lab website

Research collaborator Dijksterhuis

• Loran Nordgren
• Pamela Smith
• Chenbo Zhong

Source of the article : Wikipedia