THE ROLE OF ATTENTION IN AUTOMATIZATION - DOES ATTENTION OPERATE AT ENCODING, OR RETRIEVAL, OR BOTH

In this research, we investigated whether attention operates in the en coding of automatized information, the retrieval of automatized inform ation, or in both cases. Subjects searched two-word displays for membe rs of a target category in focused-attention or divided-attention cond itions that were crossed with block (training vs. transfer). To see wh ether subjects encoded all available items or only attended items, we compared performance for subjects in different training conditions but in the same transfer condition. Subjects encoded attended items. To s ee whether subjects retrieved all the items they had in memory, or onl y items associated with that to which they were attending at retrieval , we compared performance for subjects in the same training conditions but in different transfer conditions. Subjects retrieved attended ite ms. Attention was found to operate at both encoding and retrieval. The se findings sup port the instance theory of automaticity, which predic ts the role of attention at encoding and retrieval.