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Controlled versus Automatic Processing: All about Speed?
- The Stroop effect illustrates an important aspect of selective attention: It is easy to ignore some features of the environment, but not others.
- Explanation: word reading is faster than color naming, so color naming simply does not have the opportunity to interfere with word reading.
- Consistent with a distinction between two types of cognitive processes: controlled and automatic (Shiffrin & Schneider, 1977).
- Controlled processes are assumed to be voluntary, to require attention, and to be relatively slow.
- Automatic processes are assumed to be involuntary, to not require attention, and to be relatively fast.
