Implicit versus Deliberate Control and Its Implications for Awareness

Abstract

This chapter, which examines the concepts of implicit and deliberate control and their implications for awareness, shows that the effect considered, being associated with strategic control, is more accurately described by implicit control. This suggests that deliberate control needs to be applied as an explanation after implicit control loses its ability to accurately describe the given data. Implicit control describes those forms of learning or memory to which the learner has no access; implicit learning is compared with the explicit form whereby control assures the learner that he or she controls individual actions. Most of the actions and tasks are governed by both implicit and deliberate control, the only difference being the awareness of actions in deliberate control and inaccessible actions in implicit control.