Jove
Visualize
Contact Us
JoVE
x logofacebook logolinkedin logoyoutube logo
ABOUT JoVE
OverviewLeadershipBlogJoVE Help Center
AUTHORS
Publishing ProcessEditorial BoardScope & PoliciesPeer ReviewFAQSubmit
LIBRARIANS
TestimonialsSubscriptionsAccessResourcesLibrary Advisory BoardFAQ
RESEARCH
JoVE JournalMethods CollectionsJoVE Encyclopedia of ExperimentsArchive
EDUCATION
JoVE CoreJoVE BusinessJoVE Science EducationJoVE Lab ManualFaculty Resource CenterFaculty Site
Terms & Conditions of Use
Privacy Policy
Policies

Related Concept Videos

Counterfactual Thinking01:19

Counterfactual Thinking

272
Counterfactual thinking is a cognitive process wherein individuals mentally reconstruct alternative versions of past events, often beginning with “what if” or “if only.” This reflective mechanism plays a significant role in shaping emotional experiences and guiding future behavior. Though typically triggered by unfavorable or unexpected outcomes, counterfactual thinking can also emerge in mundane, everyday decisions and experiences, revealing its deep entrenchment in...
272
Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behavior01:28

Automatic Processing and Automatic Social Behavior

262
Automatic processing refers to the cognitive operations that occur without conscious intent or awareness, playing a fundamental role in shaping social cognition and behavior. These processes enable individuals to navigate complex social environments efficiently by relying on mental shortcuts and pre-existing knowledge structures known as schemas. One of the most influential mechanisms underlying automatic processing is priming, which subtly activates mental representations through exposure to...
262
Critical Thinking I01:24

Critical Thinking I

5.2K
Critical thinking helps decision-making and allows nurses to recognize barriers to success and find solutions to possible issues. It helps to brainstorm and implement ideas to achieve goals. Critical thinking helps acknowledge and state workflow inefficiencies while improving management techniques. Nurses understand the value of critical thinking and look for fellow nurses with critical thinking skills to upgrade their professional standards. Critical thinking can advance a nurse's career...
5.2K
Critical Thinking II01:25

Critical Thinking II

4.7K
Critical thinking is a cognitive process with several attributes. The attributes of critical thinking include the following:
4.7K
Critical Thinking01:19

Critical Thinking

1.2K
Critical thinking involves reflective and productive thinking and the evaluation of evidence. Critical thinkers seek to understand the deeper meaning of ideas, question assumptions, and make independent decisions about what to believe or do. Scientists, for instance, are often critical thinkers. Critical thinking also requires humility about what we know and don't know and the motivation to look beyond the obvious. It is essential for effective problem-solving.
Colleges and universities are...
1.2K
Creative Thinking01:25

Creative Thinking

1.3K
Creative thinking encompasses innovative and unconventional methods for addressing challenges, often leading to groundbreaking solutions. Instead of focusing solely on enhancing existing systems, such as increasing smartphone battery capacity, creative thinking might inspire advancements like energy-efficient batteries or processors that minimize power consumption. This multidimensional approach underscores the importance of exploring novel pathways to innovation.
Divergent thinking is the...
1.3K

You might also read

Related Articles

Articles linked to this work by shared authors, journal, and citation graph.

Sort by
Same author

Imagine No Resources: Attention Is Selection and Normalization for Choice.

Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science·2026
Same author

Separating decision and motor contributions to behavioral biases induced by manipulating stimulus probability.

Cognitive psychology·2026
Same author

Spotlight on the past: Focusing attention on long-term memory.

Memory & cognition·2026
Same author

Order is ordinal in serial memory.

Journal of experimental psychology. Learning, memory, and cognition·2025
Same author

It was 40 years ago today: Reflections "On the ability to inhibit simple and choice reaction time responses: A model and a method" by Logan et al. (1984).

Journal of experimental psychology. Human perception and performance·2025
Same author

The power of many: The role of global matching in the episodic flanker compatibility effect.

Memory & cognition·2025
Same journal

Perception and action as one: Re-integrating research on human action through event files.

Psychological review·2026
Same journal

Associative learning explains "intuitive statistics" in animals.

Psychological review·2026
Same journal

A reciprocal model of practice and skill: Navigating between dropout and expertise.

Psychological review·2026
Same journal

The relative psychometric function: A general analysis framework for relating psychological processes.

Psychological review·2026
Same journal

A taxonomy of discriminatory behavior.

Psychological review·2026
Same journal

Extreme-value signal detection theory for recognition memory: The parametric road not taken.

Psychological review·2026
See all related articles

Related Experiment Video

Updated: Feb 8, 2026

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
06:45

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

6.6K

Automatic control: How experts act without thinking.

Gordon D Logan1

  • 1Vanderbilt University.

Psychological Review
|June 29, 2018
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

Skilled typists achieve automatic control through hierarchical skill, where thinking of a word triggers rapid keystrokes. This theory explains how context retrieval enables seamless, unconscious execution of sequential actions.

More Related Videos

Automatic Image Processing to Determine the Community Size Structure of Riverine Macroinvertebrates
08:56

Automatic Image Processing to Determine the Community Size Structure of Riverine Macroinvertebrates

Published on: January 13, 2023

2.9K
Automatic Separation and Collection of Cancer-Related Substances from Clinical Samples
08:49

Automatic Separation and Collection of Cancer-Related Substances from Clinical Samples

Published on: January 13, 2023

2.3K

Related Experiment Videos

Last Updated: Feb 8, 2026

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal
06:45

Task Interruption and Resumption Paradigm for Testing the Activation and Pursuit of an Abstract Thinking Goal

Published on: April 18, 2017

6.6K
Automatic Image Processing to Determine the Community Size Structure of Riverine Macroinvertebrates
08:56

Automatic Image Processing to Determine the Community Size Structure of Riverine Macroinvertebrates

Published on: January 13, 2023

2.9K
Automatic Separation and Collection of Cancer-Related Substances from Clinical Samples
08:49

Automatic Separation and Collection of Cancer-Related Substances from Clinical Samples

Published on: January 13, 2023

2.3K

Area of Science:

  • Cognitive Psychology
  • Human-Computer Interaction
  • Motor Control

Background:

  • Expert performance often appears effortless and automatic.
  • Hierarchical skill theories suggest complex actions are composed of simpler, automated sub-routines.
  • Understanding automatic control is key to explaining expert behavior in sequential tasks.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To present a theory explaining automatic control in skilled typing.
  • To elucidate the mechanism of context retrieval in generating rapid keystrokes.
  • To account for phenomena like the importance of words and implicit knowledge in typing.

Main Methods:

  • Development of a theoretical model for skilled typing.
  • Utilizing a context retrieval process to match current states with stored contexts.
  • Fitting the model to error corpora from 24 skilled typists to predict error patterns.

Main Results:

  • The theory successfully explains hierarchical control phenomena in typing.
  • Model fits to error data demonstrated predictive accuracy for error probabilities and patterns.
  • The proposed mechanism of context retrieval provides a viable explanation for automatic keystroke generation.

Conclusions:

  • Automatic control in skilled typing is possible through a context retrieval process.
  • The theory extends to other sequential skills like texting and music performance.
  • This work offers new insights into the mechanisms of serial order in cognitive and motor skills.