ATTENTION AND PREATTENTION IN THEORIES OF AUTOMATICITY

The theoretical relation between preattentive processes and automatic processes is different in different approaches to attention and automaticity. In the modal view, automatic and preattentive processes are one and the same; automatic processing is preattentive. In recent views that treat automaticity as a memory phenomenon, automatic processing is postattentive. These views are described and evidence for them is discussed. Two experiments are reported that test whether the training that makes processing automatic also makes it preattentive. The data suggest a dissociation between automatic and preattentive processes that is more consistent with the memory view of automaticity than with the modal view.