An Overview of Automaticity and Implications For Training the Thinking Process

Abstract

This report examines the relationship between automaticity and thinking processes. Issues pertaining to the development of automaticity within the thinking process are discussed. A literature review was conducted to examine how automaticity has been developed in various tasks of all types (e.g., visual search to battlefield thinking). The results of this examination suggest that automaticity can be developed using consistent rules and extensive practice that vary depending on the type of task. The results also suggest that the more complex the task is the more difficult it will be to train to automatic performance. Principles are presented that are used to guide the development of automaticity. Using these principles, along with previous methodologies for developing automaticity, this report discusses training methods for developing automaticity in the thinking process.

The Excited Utterance Paradox

“…An exception, though, occurs for skills or processes that have been learned and practiced to the point that they have become automatic and require little to no conscious thought to execute. 218 For example, beginning drivers must devote a large space of their working memory desk to every component skill and demand of driving-operating the accelerator and brake smoothly and at the right times; turning the steering wheel to maneuver around corners or obstacles, as well as make small adjustments to keep the car properly oriented in the correct lane; monitoring the positions and speeds of other cars on the road and anticipating any changes in these; using turn signals or windshield wipers effectively; and so on-but an experienced driver can skillfully operate a car along a familiar route without ever thinking consciously about these component tasks. 219 In terms of our desk and papers analogy, think of the beginning driver as having to spread papers for each component task across the entire desk, but the experienced driver can adequately represent the complex but automated skills with a small sticky note that says "drive the car."…”

Factors Influencing Attenuating Skill Decay in High-Risk Industries: A Scoping Review

“…The characteristics of complex tasks differ in their propensity to decay [47,51]. Tasks that require a considerable number of action steps that are performed in a specific required order and are accomplished in a timely manner, decay more rapidly [16,25,27,34,47,52,53,[61][62][63][64]. These tasks require different cognitive abilities, are not simple to proceduralize, and consequently demand higher mental workloads [23,47].…”

“…In contrast, tasks that are performed more routinely or are more dynamic can be retained longer [46]. The task-characteristics that proved to be more prone to decay were closed-loop, procedural, discrete, and controlled processing tasks [16,25,27,34,47,52,[61][62][63][64].…”

“…Task characteristics that were less prone to skill decay included open-looped, continuous, and automatic processing tasks [16,25,27,34,47,[52][53][54][61][62][63][64][65]. However, there might be other factors that reduce or amplify the influences of task characteristics on complex cognitive skill retention, such as cognitive processing.…”

“…The study presented in [27] concluded that the open-looped and continuous tasks lead to increased retention due to their higher component complexity, which requires deeper and more elaborative processing. Another study, presented in [61], suggested that these tasks can be better retained due to components that are better proceduralized (e.g., knowledge elements are incorporated into a new knowledge structure), for instance, because they can be practiced more often in the work environment. Further, studies presented in [29,66,67] demonstrated that declarative knowledge-knowledge about facts and information-can be retained well.…”